Mardi Noir

The Völklingen Ironworks flooded in red light
Copyright: Weltkulturerbe Völklinger Hütte | Oliver Dietze

Mardi noir

Mardi noir
Copyright: Mardo Noir

Born in 1981 in Saint-Brieuc, France
Lives and works in Rennes, France

Works

Finger weg!

Mardi Noir Hand Moellerh

Mardi Noir Hand Moellerh
Copyright: Karl Heinrich Veith

Date

2024, in situ

Description

The artistic signature of Arzhel Prioul, alias Mardi Noir, is easily identifiable in Finger weg! The French street artist uses the symbolic language of pictograms, removing them from their usual, rational context, enlarging them to reveal their composition of individual colour pixels, and placing them in unusual locations. This is a piece with a humorous undertone that questions the legitimacy of authority and symbolic language per se. Mardi Noir’s works are spread across the entire ironworks site and thus require careful observation. One thing should be borne in mind, however: Finger weg! (Hands off!)

Christian Jene

Achtung, Achtung!

Mardi Noir 1

Mardi Noir 1
Copyright: Weltkulturerbe Völklinger Hütte / Hans-Georg Merkel

Date

2019, in situ

Dimensions

1,7 x 3,9 m

Material

Papier

Description

Typical for the Breton Arzhel Prioul, aka Mardi Noir, is that he takes pictograms as a starting point for his works. Like an accumulation of weathered old notices, his work announces the transience of all authority, as does his paper collage Achtung, Achtung! (Attention, Attention!), which was created for the 2019 edition of the Urban Art Biennale in Völklingen. He often uses a projector technique, which makes the roughly upscaled results look uneven and pixelated – but that is intentional.