Atelier Populaire — “Vermine Fasciste” (Paris, May 1968)
Produced in the heat of the May 1968 uprisings in Paris, the “Vermine Fasciste” poster is one of the most striking images to come out of the Atelier Populaire, the anonymous collective of students and workers who turned the École des Beaux-Arts into a revolutionary print workshop. Silkscreened in bold, limited colors and urgent lines, their posters were made to be pasted overnight on city walls, speaking directly to the street.
“Vermine Fasciste” — “Fascist Vermin” — reflects the uncompromising language and graphic power of that moment, when art was stripped of polish and returned to its most basic function: agitation, solidarity, and resistance. The rough drawing, the hand-cut type, and the immediacy of the message embody a time when design was a tool of political struggle, not commerce.
