
An Online Conversation with the invisual urban artist Gilbert Coqalane
Wednesday, February 28, 2024, at 6:00 PM.
Gilbert Coqalane is an invisible and urban artist, one of the major figures in the contemporary French art scene. His practice questions not only the limits of art but also the fundamental notions that underpin a society. He is the founder of the first invisible art movement, Perturbationism. He is also the president of CDRAO (Centre d’art Documentation Recherche Application des Offensives) and the publishing house L’Armée Recrute, a member of the board of the Federation of Urban Art, and a school mediator.
The ACAB disruption began on Wednesday, January 24, at 5:45 PM, when the artist presented himself in front of the police station in Nancy and, without authorization, wrote in invisible tag format, ACAB (All Cops Are Bastards), in large letters on the police station’s façade.
The disruption has several objectives, including re-examining the meaning of the ACAB acronym, originally anti-police. ACAB has been adapted by various social movements, for example, feminist for « All Clitoris Are Beautiful » or anti-racist for « All Colors Are Beautiful. »
Following this ongoing disruption, the artist was apprehended by the police. He was released later that evening without charges due to the absence of any materials found on him.
This disruption is a process set within a long-term temporal framework. It is uncertain when and how it will end.
It can occur in any city with a police station.
Institutionalism
During this disruption, the artist invented and theorized the act of institutionalism, a category of vandalism defined as an act of destruction or degradation targeting public or private property by a public or private institution. For context, vandalism refers to acts of destruction or damage to public or private property by a citizen. The term vandalism comes from the Vandals, who were accused of having looted Rome by deceiving the Pope.
A Historical Anchor
The disruption is set within a temporal and historical framework. The artist refers to Abbé Grégoire, who invented and theorized the concept of vandalism. Abbé Grégoire, born in Lorraine, was a Catholic priest, constitutional bishop, and French politician. He was a key figure in the French Revolution. He coined the term vandalism, stating, “I created the word to kill the thing.” In his wake, Gilbert Coqalane creates the term institutionalism, “To silence the thing.”
This moral framework established particularly in Lorraine by Abbé Grégoire is correlated with the first condemnation in France, specifically in Lorraine, for graffiti in 1877. Indeed, the first person condemned for graffiti in France was a Lorrain, Louis Lasègue, a 71-year-old resident of Verdun, sentenced by the Nancy Tribunal to two months in prison. The charges against him in the police reports: outrages by inscriptions. In reality, he was accused of collaging on official posters of the president using pre-glued paper with a stylistic inscription and a rebus 20Q de Sedan (read as “defeated of Sedan”). The potential judgment of the disruption on the territory of Abbé Grégoire and, by extension, at the Nancy Tribunal where Louis Lasègue was tried, is also a sought-after encounter that makes sense.
The Cornécourt Tool
During this disruption, Gilbert deployed the Cornécourt tool, a perturbationist tool (geographical games) and an invisible perturbationist artistic practice that involves geographical, urbanistic, and geological blurring to disrupt the perception and vision of the disruption. The deployment of this tool can expand the area and impact of the disruption and potentially provide additional analytical elements.
The Invisual Tag
Developed by CDRAO, the invisible tag is a new type of tag that is present but not visible. It is performed without equipment but not without material, similar to strategy, authority optimization, penal optimization, gesture economy, mapping, or narration. The invisible tag thus aligns with the genre of invisible art and is part of its perturbationist branch, engaged in the most radical ecological management of art, culture, and artistic production as a whole.
Sfumato Perturbato
This ecological radicalism and de-growth, though documented for years, is often rendered invisible in discussions or think tanks on the subject. With this disruption, the artist explores the sfumato of reality, or in other words, the sfumato perturbato. The invisible tag is somewhat like police violence. Just because it’s not visible doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist.
Our Individual Freedoms
Another aim of this disruption, though no less important, is to question our individual freedoms and the role of police controls. What are they for, besides depriving a person of their freedom of movement? And triggering a cycle of violence. The artist requested surveillance footage to assert his rights from the Departmental Directorate of Public Security. The police, when contacted, declined to comment.
The meeting is held in partnership with CDRAO (Centre d’art Documentation Recherche Application des Offensives). http://www.cdrao.fr/
Photo: Nancy police station, January 2024