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Poison protest painter gives French prez the chop

French president Emmanuel Macron was apparently not amused by artwork depicting him beheaded

The Art Newspaper
7 March 2025
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“Incitement to violence”? A painting has gone on show depicting a beheaded Macron Renaud Rebardy/Alamy Stock Photo

“Incitement to violence”? A painting has gone on show depicting a beheaded Macron Renaud Rebardy/Alamy Stock Photo

President Emmanuel Macron of France was not happy about a recent exhibition at an art centre on the French Caribbean island of Guadeloupe that showed him beheaded with his neck dripping in blood.

The gory piece was included in the exhibition Exposé.e.s au chlordécone (exposed to chlordecone), which opened in January at the Centre des Arts in Pointe-à-Pitre. According to local press, the Kolèktif Rézistans collective, a trio of artists, organised the headline-hitting exhibition, which the French government considers “an incitement to violence”.

The French newspaper Midi Libre says that an artist called Blow made the work, which raises concerns about chlordecone, a dangerous insecticide used on Guadeloupe and Martinique banana plantations 40 years ago.

It is unclear how the case will proceed (the French foreign affairs ministry did not respond to a request for comment). Obviously, don’t mention Marie-Antoinette…

DiaryFrancePoliticsEmmanuel MacronCaribbean art
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