Jerome Lagarrigue

Gallery Affiliations: Galerie Olivier Waltman, Dolby Chadwick Gallery

Region: Northeast

Website: http://www.jeromelagarrigue.com

City / State: Brooklyn, NY

My fascination with riots stems from my upbringing in Paris; the art of protesting is embedded within French culture, from the French Revolution of 1789 to the student strikes of May 1968 and the more recent riots of 2005. I describe the act of rioting in abstract form, without taking a political position on the conflict zone of protesters and law enforcement officers. I am not interested in portraying riots that have occurred in history, but rather to recreate fictional conflicts, using elements from available photographs, etchings, and drawings. Geographic locations remain unidentifiable. Protesters and policemen are anonymous. I draw my inspiration from etchings and drawings capturing the “Negro” riots of 1712–41, the abolitionist riots of 1834–35, as well as photographs documenting the race riots in Atlanta of 1906, the civil rights movement, the Palestinian Intifada, the Los Angeles and Crown Heights riots, the recent London riots, and the Arab Spring demonstrations.