Fin du mythe de l’art underground anti-institutionnel : L’utopie de la démocratie culturelle et l’environnement labyrinthe Vive la rue Saint-Denis ! (1971)

Abstract

This article defends the thesis that underground artistic of the 1970s was integrated into the Establishment at the dawn of a new cultural ideology, cultural democracy, which addresses a new public. The implementation of programs as Youth Perspectives, Local Initiatives and Explorations allowed to finance projects as Vive la rue Saint-Denis ! New public are joined with sociocultural events. It is the era of sociocultural community development, so appreciated by a precise croud having for spokesman Yves Robillard, member of Fusion des arts inc. After the crisis of October, it is a question of integrating into the socioeconomic system a youth against cultural, pro-independence (in Quebec), marxist and in unemployed. As a matter of fact, counterculture artists or the politicized artistic neo-avant-garde observed share with the State a set of humanist values and of professional interests, characteristics of the Welfare State, even if their purposes are not necessarily the same.