Censorship is alive and well and living in Paris.

The Ecole nationale supérieure des beaux-arts in Paris, together with the Royal College of Arts in London and the LASALLE College of the Arts in Singapore, put together an exhibition of student work. Entitled Seven Day Week End / Week End de Sept Jours, the show questions Utopian perspectives of art and a society dedicated to the unhindered pursuit of pleasure. It is open to the public in the afternoon through 21 February, free of charge.

One of the works, by Ko Siu Lan, gently satirized a slogan that Nicolas Sarkozy used in his 2007 presidential campaign: travailler plus pour gagner plus (work more to earn more). The artist prepared two banners, each with one word printed on each side, and had the banners displayed at the school’s entry. Depending on the direction a passerby approaches the school, he will read: “gagner plus” (earn more, visible when looking westward) or “travailler moins” (work less, visible when looking eastward).

The art school promptly removed the display. School officials provided the media with many explanations for this action:

  • the school administration had not been notified;
  • the school administration permitted only an indoors display of the work;
  • the work did not display the artist’s name or the title of the work;
  • by “spectacularly using a State building dedicated to education to mediate her message”, the artist could “jeopardize the neutrality of public services”.

Exhibit curator Clare Carolin, a senior tutor at the Royal College of Arts, saw this move for what it was and declared: “This is unambiguous censorship.”

By Saturday, the silliness of the official response led French culture minister Frédéric Mitterrand to ask that the work be reinstalled at its outdoor display point. I assume it will remain there through 21 February. As the photos above show, a public works project apparently had to be carried out immediately in front of the school and the artwork, during the exhibition.

Ko Siu Lan will present a solo show at Galerie Paris-Beijing on June 10.