Christian Barre's socially engaged art work is described in 3 paragraphs out of context.
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“Since 1998, the work of Christian Barré is situated in the movement of the practices called “furtive” – a term borrowed from Patrice Loubier – and which, to be laconic, are the result of the maneuver and the intervention in public and private spaces. These practices, which today are also widely described as “infiltrating”, sometimes generate visible results in the institutionalized places of the art or inside of events that can assure their promotion and so promote and thus to make known their existence. Additionally, we can find them described and listed in the publications. Even though they are aesthetic representations, which approach the spectacular advertising representations, this is one of the ways thus by taking the proticulier’s knowledge: its reception does not let itself easily be defined. Most often, the material of a political gesture is the human being, who is also the privileged spectator”
“Barré’s work, deeply rooted in his time, delivers a harsh message in a sublime tone: harsh as life is; sublime in the image of what advertising does with it. He wants to turn to his advantage the power of impact of a powerful mode of communication often used to daze the spectator, to serve a strong message. This party to transmit a significant message and to cause the reflection of the spectator on his social condition is far from the role that one still all too often allots to the artist: that to please.”
” Christian Barré is especially known for his interventions in public space. His work, which most often uses strategies related to systems of mass communications, makes the city his framework for observation and analysis. More specifically, he uses and twists the use of communicational models in order to intervene in social and political realms. With an emphasis on the social function of art, Barré seeks to infiltrate unknown worlds that involve intimacy, proximity and people’s private lives. His goal is, to a certain extent, to effect the insertion of ordinary people and society’s rejects into the social fabric. “