In the landscape of contemporary French art, Alexandre Bavard occupies a singular position: that of an artist who has never truly left the street, even after entering the institutional space. Born in 1987, trained at the École Boulle and later at the Beaux-Arts in Lyon, he has developed for more than a decade a hybrid body of work that moves between painting, sculpture, and installation, while preserving the fundamental imprint of his origins in graffiti under the pseudonym MOSA.
Yet reducing Bavard to a “former graffiti writer” would be a critical mistake. What runs through his work is not so much an urban aesthetic as a logic of gesture: speed, energy, directness, a frontal confrontation with the viewer. His works carry the memory of a body in action. They are less images than condensations of physical experiences.
In his work, temporalities collide. Medieval references coexist with contemporary symbols of violence or social control; human figures emerge in ambiguous postures, somewhere between heroism and vulnerability. This iconographic collision produces a feeling of displacement, almost discomfort, which precisely constitutes the strength of his visual language. The artist does not seek to stabilize meaning: he keeps the image in a state of tension.
One of the most interesting dimensions of his research lies in his relationship to trace and anonymity. By working from erased urban signs—the buff, those municipal coverings of graffiti—Bavard performs a form of contemporary archaeology. The aim is not to reproduce the street but to reveal its invisible memory: that of anonymous gestures, minor struggles, vanished presences. The painter becomes a medium between collective actions and their aesthetic survival.
His sculptures extend this reflection into volume. Fragmented bodies, figures under tension, raw materials: everything contributes to producing a sense of instability. One senses a persistent questioning of identity—personal, social, political—without ever falling into narrative illustration. Bavard does not tell stories; he exposes states.
What makes his work particularly relevant today is precisely this ambivalence. At a time saturated with smooth and immediately readable images, he claims a certain opacity. Not as an elitist strategy, but as a space of projection for the viewer. The artwork becomes a field of forces rather than a message.
Ultimately, Alexandre Bavard poses an essential question: what remains of a gesture once it has disappeared? And how can art still carry the memory of an intensity once lived?
MODEM:Your trajectory moves from graffiti-a practice that is illegal, anonymous, and site-specific-to the structured, institutional, and commercial art system. What have you truly gained in this transition, and what have you lost in terms of intensity or freedom?
Alexandre Bavard: I wouldn’t say that I’ve lost intensity or freedom. For me, it’s more of a continuation. Obviously, when you work within an institution or a gallery, the contexts and modes of reception are not the same as in the street. But I try to preserve the same form of free and audacious expression.
My work is precisely situated in that balance. On one side, there is the freedom and a certain naivety inherent to graffiti—this direct, almost instinctive energy. On the other, there is the possibility of inscribing that energy within a more structured and legible framework, that of the institution.
This tension interests me a lot. It also comes from the very concrete experience of painting in the street: there is stress, emotion, adrenaline, and at the same time the necessity to channel all of this in order to produce an image quickly, in a way that feels accurate and authentic. That ability to transform physical intensity into a visual form still accompanies me today.
Ultimately, I increasingly ask myself less whether my painting belongs to the street or to the institution. What matters to me is finding the right approach to transmit that energy in a clear and intelligible way.
MODEM:In several series, you draw from urban signs that you did not produce yourself, notably anonymous tags. Where do you situate the boundary between appropriation, homage, and contemporary visual archaeology?
Alexandre Bavard: For me, it’s not really a question of appropriation. The tags I observe in the city are of course made by individuals, but they often appear in an anonymous form. That is precisely what interests me: they are signs that exist in public space without being immediately tied to a specific identity.
I don’t take the signature or the name of a particular artist. What inspires me instead is the presence of these anonymous traces. They become a starting point for my paintings, which are certainly signed, but which try to move beyond the sole figure of the artist in order to be part of something more collective.
So I see them more as a source of inspiration than as an act of appropriation. My work consists mainly in observing and transforming these signs while reflecting on their status as traces.
This is also a question I explored in a project supported by the ADAGP entitled Damnatio Memoriae, dedicated to graffiti from Antiquity to the present day. These inscriptions are part of history, yet they are often erased, marginalized, or forgotten. Through my work, I try precisely to give them back a form of historicity, almost an archaeological dimension.
MODEM:Your figurative sculptures seem to oscillate between autobiography and fiction, between projection of the self and imagined character. Is this a way of resolving an identity tension, or rather of deliberately keeping it open?
Alexandre Bavard: During my last exhibition, Agora, presented at the Théâtre de Liège, I created a series of sculptures inspired by ancient figures, combined with elements drawn from contemporary urban imagination. What interests me is precisely this tension between different temporalities and cultures.
These hybrid figures allow me to address questions of identity and belief, but also very contemporary elements such as fashion or certain aesthetics derived from urban culture.
In that sense, these works are both autobiographical and fictional. They start from a personal experience, but they transform into characters that go beyond my own identity. I see them more as fantasized projections of the self—possible figures.
Ultimately, I like to leave this tension open: between self-portrait and myth, between individual and archetype. The sculptures then become a kind of contemporary allegories.
MODEM:In your work one senses a fascination with revolt—yellow vests, police iconography, figures of fighters—yet rarely in the form of explicit discourse. Do you think art can still act politically today, or only produce images of politics?
Alexandre Bavard: Part of my work is indeed traversed by the idea of revolt. This probably comes from my origins in graffiti: there is in the tag a rebellious, illegal, even vandal dimension that still inhabits me today.
I have also been deeply marked by many recent events, in France and elsewhere. We live in a world crossed by numerous injustices, and that inevitably nourishes my perspective. Art then becomes a way to express oneself. In other spaces—political, media, or even on social networks—speech is often very constrained, sometimes censored. Art remains, for me, one of the last spaces where one can still formulate a vision of the world in a relatively free way.
In my work, this political dimension does not appear as a direct discourse. It rather passes through symbols, figures, or installations—sometimes video—that function in an allegorical way.
I believe art is always political in some sense, because it expresses a vision of the world. And today I feel we are living in a very troubled time, where the future sometimes seems to close rather than open. If my works can provoke reflection or open a discussion around these questions, then that already seems important to me.
Alexandre Bavard @ Galerie Molin Corvo
