2024-03-05 20:20:00
Created by Ugo Gattoni and unveiled to the public on Monday March 4, the official poster for the 2024 Olympics attracted the wrath of the right because it does not see a cross or a tricolor flag. The Republicans, in particular, sharply criticized the fact of being “ready to deny France to the point of distorting reality to cancel its history”.
If the artist claims to have no “ulterior motive”, his sense of detail has not been equally applied to all the elements of his work… Or perhaps yes, precisely. We find some of the most famous French monuments such as the Eiffel Tower, the Arc de Triomphe, or the Invalides, to which he wanted to bring a “surrealist and festive” touch.
Result: colors everywhere, but no tricolor flag; lots of symbols, but no Christian cross on the Saint-Louis des Invalides cathedral. The right has stepped up to the plate.
Marion Maréchal was offended: “Why erase the cross at the top of the dome of the Invalides? Why no French flag? What is the point of organizing the Olympic Games in France if it is to hide what we are?”
At Les Républicains, François-Xavier Bellamy denounced those who “are ready to deny France to the point of distorting reality to cancel its history”, focusing on the cross which “constitutes the deep meaning” of Les Invalides.
This dome “is not that of a supermarket, but of a chapel”, added the president of the party, Eric Ciotti, for whom the poster “denies the very identity of this building as well as French history “. Same story with Nicolas Dupont-Aignan, who considers the work “scandalous”.
On the National Rally side, if Marine Le Pen refrained from any comments, Jordan Bardella did not hesitate to name the culprits: “Macronism is the great erasure of our identity”.
Faced with this outpouring of criticism, the poster’s creator Ugo Gattoni asserted his artistic vision, which “does not seek to represent objects or buildings in a conforming manner”.
“I evoke them, as they appear to me in my mind and without ulterior motives. I do not seek for them to be faithful to the original, but rather to be able to imagine them in the blink of an eye. “see what it is about, while projecting it into a surreal and festive universe”, he explained.
It received the support of the Organizing Committee of the Olympic Games (Cojo), which sees it as a “joyful, light-hearted artistic interpretation of a reinvented stadium city”. The government spokesperson, while ensuring that she wanted “a moment of national cohesion” and “a little respite from futile controversies”, allowed herself a little irony: “It is not a question of photo, it’s a drawing: yes, the Eiffel Tower is not pink; yes, the Stade de France is not going to suddenly levitate on the Eiffel Tower; the sea cannot be seen from Paris…”
In the work, the reinterpretations of reality are indeed legion, but passing the metro under the Arc de Triomphe does not have quite the same symbolism (if there is one) as undressing a historic cathedral of his cross. Just like flying the Stade de France around the Iron Lady is not comparable to the complete disappearance of the flag. Can we, with a “surrealist” spin, deny a disappearance by drowning the fish with apparitions?
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