The Riddle of May '68: Collectivity and Protest in the Salon de la Jeune Peinture

This article examines the case of the anti-painting demonstrations of Daniel Buren, Olivier Mosset, Michel Parmentier, and Niele Toroni at the Salon de la Jeune Peinture in 1967 as a significant moment in the disjunction between the forms of political contestation that marked that era and a post-modern critical art practice. By relocating that seminal moment within its particular context in the militantly left-wing and figurative painting-heavy Salon de la Jeune Peinture, I examine how, an alternative model of artistic political engagement, one heavily influenced by the writings of Marxist philosopher Louis Althusser, has been overlooked. The article follows the activities of the Jeune Peinture from their radicalization in 1965 to their involvement in the Atelier Populaire poster workshop during May '68. Situating Buren and his comrades' actions in opposition to the Jeune Peinture, I argue that the two divergent means of critiquing the: common enemy of individual expression in art determined the different possibilities for the involvement of artists in the May '68 uprising.