Passerelle Centre d’art contemporain is moving for one year into the former Cercle Naval in Brest, a place laden with history and which used to be reserved for officers of the French Navy. In the former dining hall the art centre is setting up the first exhibition devoted to the history of graffiti in Brest from the 1980s to the year 2000. An unexpected dialogue will therefore be triggered between the prestigious architecture of the Cercle Naval and the underground urban culture that has made its mark on the city. Such programming clearly demonstrates the wish of Passerelle to play with codes and cause memories to speak to each other.

The exhibition Brest under the bombs – A history of graffiti 1984-2004 illustrates the use of the aerosol (called the bombe aérosol in French) in the Brest public space, and recounts the first twenty years of its urban art. Through many previously unseen archive documents (photographs, films, press articles, ephemera, objects, contributions by artists, personal accounts, historical reconstructions and more) this exhibition shows the major role played by the city of Brest in the history of French urban art.

Chapter1: The aerosol as a tool
The exhibition opens with a presentation of the aerosol as a tool, from its origins to its recent evolution, thanks to the impressive collection of Aurélien Harmignies, who is considered to be Europe’s major collector of aerosols. In a richly documented timeline, the exhibition presents aerosols from the 1960s to the 2000s along with their advertising, display stands and press articles and explains how urban artists first diverted the tool from its original function until the paint industry began to design aerosols especially for them.

Chapter 2: Inscriptions and demands
Spontaneous expression in the public space, applied directly onto the wall, inscribed in chalk or felt pen, painted or stuck on as a poster, received a great boost when aerosols came onto the market in the 1960s and 1970s. This was about slogans making demands, humorous comments, unauthorised promotional messages or simply the desire to mark one’s presence.

Chapter 3: Graffiti writing
In the late 1960s graffiti writing began to appear in New York and Philadelphia. This was a new type of graffiti, which involved signing or drawing your pseudonym on a huge scale so that your peers could not fail to see it. The practice developed in France from the early 1980s, especially in Brest, when the film Beat Street came out, featuring this type of graffiti as central to the plot. Other contributory factors were the presence of American servicemen based in Brest and the television programme, Hip Hop. Paris and Brest were among the first cities in France where this American import began to be seen.

Chapter 4: Ninja Force / Acropol Group
The first hip-hop community in Brest began in 1983. Influenced by their American mentors, they adopted their codes and were soon competing artistically with other dance communities. Bruno and Sane came into particular prominence for their sense of purpose and talent. Gradually, they got organised, became more professional, and inspired, through imitation, new generations of graffiti artists to develop graffiti writing in Brest.

Chapter 5: The iconic locations of Brest
Apart from in the street and along railway lines, graffiti writing is seen in empty spaces in the urban fabric where the discretion and tolerance of the authorities allows the artists to give full rein to their self-expression. The Maison Pour Tous at Valy Hir, the former factory at Kerfautras, the port and the old cider works have therefore become veritable open-air studios.

Chapter 6: A booming, organised and influential local scene
During the 1990s, many communities came into being and began to form links with other towns in Brittany. The U-Know shop opened, specialising in urban cultures and selling aerosols, and becoming the headquarters of this new generation of artists. One-off gatherings (concerts, festivals, graffiti jams) were organised, eventually leading to Brest being seen as a major scene for urban art in France. The jam at the port in 2000 was the high point, bringing together artists from all over France and even Belgium and making its mark on the whole country. From then on, the Brest scene has gone from strength to strength, as shown by the publication of Westbook in 2004, a book documenting the history of urban art in Brest.

This exhibition reproduces the research undertaken by the Centre Arcanes in the Brest area, especially related to the port of Brest, begun in 2021 with the support of the City of Brest and DRAC Bretagne.

It also extends the research undertaken by the Centre Arcanes on the exhibition Aérosol presented in 2024 at the Musée des Beaux-Arts in Rennes and in 2025 at the Musée des Beaux-Arts in Nancy.