Street art. Who is the author of the Scrabble letters in the streets of Rouen?
We come across it by chance but chance sometimes reserves many surprises. Scrabble letters forming words are based on faded or tagged street furniture in the streets of Rouen (Seine-Maritime). On one found its author.
You may have seen them walking through the streets of Rouen. Stuck on street furniture, panels or walls: Scrabble letters forming several words have been blooming for two years in the four corners of the city. The message is meant to be schoolboy, poetic or militant. Many do not notice anything, so much the assembly blends into the decor. This is the case, for example, of this bench located on the Place du 19 avril 1944.
Behind these mysterious messages hides a street-artist from Rouen. He calls himself “Goatee”. That’s about all you know about him. This lover of words wishes to preserve his anonymity.
The day of our report, he gave us an appointment to show us one of his latest collages. “The words are prepared in advance, it allows me to save a little time for gluing”, he explains to us. He recently spotted an old panel to which he intends to give a second life. “It’s not completely legal, we’ll say it like that,” says the street artist.
A few dots of glue and the work can begin. “The message I want to convey is that something or someone who is old can also be beautiful,” Barbichette tells us about his latest collage.
The idea is not to make sentences. It is to put some words that people associate with each other. It’s not always easy to convey a message with very few words.
Collages that are sometimes ephemeral:
The shortest lasted 10 minutes. Time to have a coffee and come back, he was already gone. Someone must have had fun dropping it. Others have been there for a year and a half.
Barbichette has been playing with letters for two years, renewing them regularly by buying second-hand Scrabble; It is sometimes necessary to restrict the use of certain letters, present in smaller quantities in a game of Scrabble. And that’s why the ones worth the most points. “I pay attention to the P’s, R’s and C’s. These are letters that I use often and there are sometimes two of each in a game. I quickly find myself lacking. Same for the jokers that I use for my signature.”
In his collages, the words do not count double or triple. Moreover, he will admit to us that he is not a great Scrabble player. For him, the essential is elsewhere:
It is the mobility of letters. We can put them as we want, move them. I break free from all the rules. I write in order, out of order, upside down, making spelling mistakes… I give myself all the possibilities.
About thirty of his collages are still visible in Rouen and its surroundings. Now it’s up to you to find them…