Can we separate the artist from his work?
This inflammable philosophical debate took place in a popular district of Montreuil (Seine-Saint-Denis), divided vis-à-vis a monumental light installation by the famous plastic artist Claude Lévêque, today accused of rape of minors.
In the central square of the Bel Air district, on the heights of Montreuil, three large stainless steel circles set with light bulbs unfold around the pillars of a decrepit water tower.
Almost invisible during the day, the work lights up at nightfall.
Then the circles are transfigured into blue hoops, which seem to twirl gracefully around the structure.
Extinct since January
However, since January, this nocturnal hula hoop has ceased. Montreuil shut down the
Modern Dance
installation
, a few days after learning that its internationally renowned designer had been the subject since 2019 of an investigation for rape and sexual assault on minors under 15, which dates back to the middle of the 1980s. Claude Lévêque, 68, is accused by a fifty-year-old sculptor who says he was a victim with his two brothers.
This extinction, without dismantling, had been decided "to respond to the shock of the inhabitants which was expressed at the time", explains the town hall of Montreuil.
Installed in the public space, “the work stood out in the eyes of passers-by” and even imposed itself on those who no longer wanted to see it, estimates the city, which must contractually maintain it for 25 years.
During a year of status quo, the three circles thus remained in place on the water tower, extinct, ignored.
The neighborhood council asks to relight the installation
It was then that a slingshot woke up.
At the end of November, the Bel Air neighborhood council sent a letter to the town hall asking them to turn the installation back on.
In this text, this body of participatory democracy argues that the inhabitants have appropriated this work, now integrated into "local heritage", and that appreciating it does not mean any form of support for its creator.
Without this illumination, the neighborhood has become "sad" and "gloomy", laments the letter.
Many residents don't even know anything about the story with Claude Lévêque and just think that the work is down, or broken.
"Fairy and beautiful"
"I do not understand the meaning of turning off the lights to fight against pedophilia," annoys Delphes Desvoivres, a sculptor living in Bel Air and one of the initiators of this petition.
According to this Montreuilloise, who testified before the commission on pedocriminality in the Church about the sexual abuse inflicted on her father by a priest, "turning off the lights has never helped anyone get better ..."
For the inhabitants of Bel Air, the work of Claude Lévêque was a kind of local pride.
Something unique, rewarding.
“It's magical and beautiful.
Honestly, apart from the bars of buildings, there is not much beautiful in the district, ”testifies Mimoun, resident of social housing in Bel Air for 16 years.
Installed in 2015
Commissioned by the municipality from the plastic surgeon, resident of Montreuil,
Modern Dance
also symbolized a form of rebirth of the district. Its installation in 2015 marked the culmination of a decade of gigantic urban renewal works to rehabilitate this area which was afflicted by insecurity and poverty. “In summer, people came to see the work. They were waiting here in the café for it to be dark ”and for her to cheer up, remembers Niakaté, owner of the only café-restaurant in the neighborhood, opposite the water tower.
However, even locally, the rekindling of
Modern Dance
is not unanimous.
And sometimes gives rise to electrical exchanges.
Kindergarten teacher, Cécile Miquel regularly showed her students the work of Claude Lévêque, an artist she admired.
His
Modern Dance
had even weighed in his decision to come and settle in Bel Air.
"An ode to childhood"
However, since the revelation of the case, the installation of the plastic surgeon causes in her an epidermal rejection.
“I've had enough of this injunction to separate things from everything,” she said, “we are what we do.
We cannot store pedophile acts in a drawer ”.
With her association of parents of pupils, this contemporary art lover firmly defends the extinction of the lights "to show that in 2021 we want things to change.
That children understand that they have the right to speak and that adults will be there to listen to them, take note and act accordingly ”.
Especially since, she recalls, the work of Claude Lévêque, with its set of hoops, is “an ode to childhood, to the carefree childhood”.
Culture
Maine-et-Loire: A work by Claude Lévêque, accused of rape, withdrawn from Fontevraud
Culture
Sexual violence: Claude Lévêque, plastic surgeon, targeted by an investigation for rape of minors
Rape
Controversy
Artwork
Artist
Paris
Montreuil
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