'Sois Jeune et Tais Toi'

The posters made in the Atelier Populaire were produced on newspaper rolls for the most part. Even when the same image appears, there is considerable variation between individual examples. Some were stamped, while others were not. In keeping with the egalitarian ethos of the movement, almost none of the posters were signed. Like other posters such as Moins de 21 ans, voici votre bulletin de vote, and Quand les Parents Votent les Enfants Trinquent, which are also in the collection of the House of European History, Sois Jeune et Tais Toi expresses a sense of youth dislocation and alienation from the political system of de Gaulle’s France. These posters adopted techniques derived from Pop Art and deployed them in a highly charged moment of youth revolt. Although arguably not intended to endure beyond the student protests, the work was highly influential subsequently, notably in the Punk period at the end of the 1970s. A direct line can be traced from the work of the Atelier to the work of Jamie Reid, for example, who created the highly innovative cut and paste agitprop visual identity of the British punk band, the Sex Pistols. Subsequently, the events of May 1968 in Paris seeped into the public consciousness in Europe as a moment of intense passion when a protest movement that began on a university campus spread to the factories and revolution loomed. This image and others produced in the studio played a key role in heightening this awareness.

Stamp Position: recto “Atelier Populaire, École des Beaux Arts."