PARIS 68
Pedro´s philosophy has guided his body of work to, in recent years, often depict the May 1968 protests in Paris. His paintings return to the french streets, not as historiography but as an ongoing struggle, an unresolved piece of commentary that is yet to see closure. These works do not merely document; they reinterpret, confronting the viewer with the tension between destruction and creation, violence and beauty, chaos and change. In doing so, Real extends his long-standing interest in the ways violence is fetishized, commodified, and reshaped as propaganda, reframing protest and art not as distanced objects of the past but as living, breathing forces that continue to evolve.
Under collaboration with writer Jamie Mustard and the insight of filmmaker Corey Drayton, his team has assembled these works into a new exhibition: PARIS 68. More than an exhibition, it is a meditation on street art, democracy, and the transformation of protest imagery into something beyond the documentary—a modern mythology of resistance. In these paintings, the kineticism of street clashes and the defiance of revolutionary heroes are not merely revisited but reimagined, where the violence of the pictures is transfigured into something sublime, herculean. Yet, beneath this aesthetic elevation lies a socratic contradiction: in speaking out against the commodification of revolution, Pedro knowingly engages in the very process he critiques.
There is no denying that the artist exists within modern western society, a space that historically absorbs and reconfigures radicalism into a consumable product. Protest art, once a tool of defiance, is cruelly perverted into a collectible, its crude emotion poorly translated into value. Real is acutely aware of this paradox—his exhibition, which aims to celebrate and bring back the raw energy of insurrection, is itself a curated, polished product, subject to the same forces of capitalism that neutralize radical imagery. It is this contradiction that gives PARIS 68 its potency. Rather than avoiding the issue, Pedro leans into it, forcing the audience to confront how images of revolt can shift from weapons of dissent to objects of twisted desire.
Pedro’s work operates, by sheer necessity, within this paradox, embracing the contradictions of upheaval while seeking to elevate them. By utilizing his singular technique, he seeks to depict his protesters in the same light as greecian, antique heroes - and hopes that by creating iconic imagery, he can make audiences realize that bravery and revolt should be commemorated now, not years after they´ve passed. By immortalizing May 1968, PARIS 68 asserts that the battle for democracy using art is neither static nor confined to the past. It is alive, constantly being revisited, and, in the end, always at risk of being bought and sold.
PARIS 68 video reel.
Direction and filmography by Mateus “Magro” Ceccato. shot in curitiba, brazil in 2023.
CANVAS PICTURES BY PEDRO MAMORÉ
