La maison rouge presents L’Esprit français, Countercultures, 1969-1989, a thematic group exhibition by curators Guillaume Désanges and François Piron.

A generation was shaped by the ideas thrown into the ring by May ‘68, which advocated every kind of freedom - political, social, aesthetic, freedom to live as one pleased. They produced an indefinable nebula of autonomous practices that came and went between these different fields, demonstrating a singular «French spirit» made up of idealism and nihilism, caustic humour and eroticism, darkness and hedonism. A distinct brand of humour appeared to permeate the fringes of French society, from the emergence of a «youth movement».

From Narrative Figuration to the hardcore graphics of Bazooka, from Les Editions Champ Libre to the first «radios libres» (a form of pirate radio), from Hara-Kiri to Bérurier Noir, the exhibition looks at the formation of a critical, irreverent, dissenting «French spirit» by proposing a multitude of crossovers and affinities. The purpose of its invocation of once marginalised ideas and practices is to shed a non-nostaligic light on cultural mutations, but also bring a certain form of energy to life.