This year, among the many exciting exhibitions that will be on display in Paris, (many related to Asia, and robots, promoted by the Asian continent), it is regrettable that on its 50th anniversary, none of these exhibitions will take a look back at the “events of May ‘68”; except for a retrospective display of newspapers and photos at the National Library that will surely be fascinating.
For most of our contemporaries, May ’68 has sunk into oblivion in their memory. Or, this very special moment still lies in the uncertain purgatory in which artists and events of history remain for a long time after their disappearance, before time decides what human memory ought to retain.
We remember the sentence attributed to Zhou En Lai, who was asked what history would take from the French Revolution. He replied, “it is still too early to say.” This quip lends itself well to the events of May ‘68, which was not only a French event, but also first reached the United States, then the whole West. For some, it was an anarchic and delusional whiff that destroyed a great quantity of the founding values of Western society in favour of a phony hedonism. For others, it was a first liberating assault to the corset of patriarchal moralism that locked the potential of the youth, while serving their elders’ desire for power.
In fact, it coincided with the entry of women and adolescents into the market, first as consumers, then as citizens and suppliers. Glorified values—change, nomadism, individualism, narcissism and the rejection of the hierarchy—traces of which can be found in the ensuing behaviour of the leaders of these movements who became the popes of advertising these values or the popes of the most classic politics; and in the behaviours of the young children of the youth at the time, characterized as “Generation Z,” whose values are fifty years old now.
May ‘68 gave birth to the globalization of market democracy, of the entrance of the middle classes into its pleasures and illusions; and of the related art forms.
As is the case with every political upheaval, the artists were in the front lines of these battles in 1968. As in the time of Diderot, or that of Baudelaire, dominant art was violently criticized; Schools of Fine Arts were closed; masters hitherto praised to the skies were mocked; and new forms of art were adored.
There is no doubt that we can attribute to this movement more changes in music and cinema than in any other art forms. In fact, it is even defined by iconic works such as those heard at the jubilant Woodstock Festival or films like the premonitory Easy Rider, both prepared in 1968 and went into production the following year.
In the other art forms, enormous liberations took place, though it is not possible to connect all of it directly to May ’68. There are, however, innumerable traces of the May ’68 events in painting, in sculpture, and in the new art forms that arose since; through refusal of academicism, and the refusal to apologize for improvisation, the streets and the people. Moreover, through assumed apologia of the narcissism of the artists.
A large exhibition, somewhere, would have been an opportunity to reflect on these issues, the consequences of which we are experiencing today.
But it is still too early, no doubt. When we can bravely confront the insolence of this movement, it will be proof that we will be able to keep the best of it: not selfish individualism, but ourselves becoming creators.
Perhaps it is necessary to wait for another event of the same kind to tip the scale in the opposite direction, toward altruism. When? Where ? No one knows, but it will happen.
j@attali.com
