NEITHER GOD NOR MASTER! ARTS AND ANARCHY FROM COURBET TO BANKSY

A black flag as a banner, a slogan as a rallying cry: Neither God nor master. From Gustave Courbet to Banksy, La Piscine retraces a century and a half of art under the libertarian banner, where creation embraces revolt. The first movement to challenge all authority, anarchism quickly seduced artists with the freedom it afforded them. The Neo-Impressionists seized upon it: Paul Signac, Camille Pissarro, and Maximilien Luce painted the factory, the crowd, the worker. Courbet paints the portrait of his friend, the philosopher Proudhon, Félix Vallotton engraves The Anarchist, Steinlen and his Black Cat enlist the poster and the print in the service of the cause. Then the Fauves, Derain, Vlaminck, Van Dongen, prolong the rebellious spirit. The movement is thought to have died out after the Liberation. Léo Ferré will nevertheless sing that anarchists, however rare they may be, nonetheless exist. Libertarian thought does not die: it permeates May '68, then punk, before spreading to the web, comics, and street art, where Banksy makes stencils a weapon. From there, an extraordinary journey, which finally brings together all disciplines, from the visual arts to fashion, from design to cinema, from literature to music. For this rejection of all masters was also, well ahead of its time, a critique of imperialism, capitalism, and its ravages on humanity and nature. Anarchism was a century ahead of its time: the exhibition finally reveals this.

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LA PISCINE - ANDRÉ DILIGENT MUSEUM OF ART AND INDUSTRY
From October 10, 2026 to January 24, 2027
23 rue de l’Espérance, 59100 Roubaix
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