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CAPITALE(S) 60 Years of Urban Art in Paris

October 23, 2022 butterfly

Butterfly Art News is pleased to partner with the Ville de Paris for the Exhibition ‘CAPITALE(S) – 60 ans d’art urbain’, hosted within the Hotel de Ville, Paris City Hall, and running from 15 October until 11 February 2023. Free entry, but booking is essential here

Through the creations of more than 70 artists, works from prestigious collections, archive documents, photos and videos, in situ interventions, painted walls throughout the city, CAPITALE(S) presents a wide panorama of the Urban Art Movement and the importance of the Parisian scene spanning across the past 60 years.

The exhibition starts with pioneers from the 60’s and 70’s like Jacques Villegle, Raymond Hains, Ernest Pignon-Ernest or Zlotykamien.

Then the early 80’s feature the white man figures of Jerôme Mesnager, robots by Speedy Graphito and the proliferation of stencils by Miss Tic, Blek Le Rat, Mosko, Jef Aerosol, Epsylon Point.

This period of intense urban activity allows the emergence of artists’ collectives such as VLP (Vive la Peinture) affiliated with the punk culture or the Ripoulin brothers.

French-American teenager Bando (b. in 1965) introduced graffiti in France after writing in New York, followed by the New York City Rap Tour in 1982. Graffiti writers invade the banks of the Seine and adorn the palissades of the Louvre construction site. Stalingrad, a spot found by graffiti writer Ash, becomes the Hall of Fame for the prolific graffiti scene until 1989, featuring writers like Mode2, Niels ‘Shoe’ Meulman, Lokiss, Nasty, SKKI and numerous graffiti crew. In parallel Psychose paints in the catacombs and the underground sewers system.

In 1987 Keith Haring paints the emergency staircase of the Hopital Necker to provide hopes of brightening the spirits of sick children in the world’s first pediatric hospital.

Like in the US, graffiti was severely repressed in Paris in the early 90’s. American artists like Futura, A-One or even Rammellzee gain recognition from the European artistic community and present their works in galleries and museums in Paris. JonOne will settle permanently in Paris.

In the 2000’s, urban art has become a global movement with a multitude of techniques: from graffiti to street art, paste ups, stickers, stencils, mosaics and more. International artists are coming to Paris to leave their mark: Shepard Fairey, Swoon, Banksy, Vhils.

French artists have also gained international recognition: Andre, Invader, Zevs, JR, Dran, Lek and Sowat, Seth, L’Atlas, C215, Ludo, RERO, Philippe Baudelocque to Levalet.

Specially for CAPITALE(S), Invader has put two new aliases to be flashed for all the Flash Invaders addicts and shared a fully updated map of his invasion of the streets of Paris.

The exhibition presents also immersive and playful experiences.

Kashink, Kraken and Madame have created 3 entirely virtual works, hidden in a secret room of the exhibition: “The Fifth Wall“. A hunt for clues in Augmented Reality can be found through QR codes to be scanned under the works.

Visitors can try out graffiti with a digital spray can through GRAFFITI DIGITAL Picturae.

Artist Cristobal Diaz has created a GRAFF BOX, an immersive experience combining urban calligraphic production with playful digital devices featuring 250 artists.

While it is difficult to include the full scope of artists that have been active in Paris in the past 60 years within the City Hall, the four curators Magda Danysz, Elise Herszkowicz, Nicolas Laugero Lasserre and Marko93 have gathered following artists:

• Jacques Villeglé • Zlotykamien • Ernest Pignon-Ernest • Surface Active • Captain Fluo • Edmond Marie Rouffet • Blek le Rat • Miss.Tic • VLP • Speedy Graphito • Jean Faucheur • Mesnager • Mosko • Jef Aérosol • Bando • Ash • Jay0ne • SKKI • Keith Haring • Mambo • Nasty • Slice • Psyckoze • Lokiss • Shoe • Futura • A-One • Rammellzee • Jon0ne • André • Zevs • Dize • Invader • Shepard Fairey • JR • Vhils • Swoon • Banksy • C215 • L’Atlas • YZ • Seth • Tarek Benaoum • eL Seed • Ludo • Rero • Dran • O’Clock • Tanc • Lek • Sowat • Cristobal Diaz • Philippe Baudelocque • Levalet • Madame • Kashink • Vision • Pest • Greky • Sébastien Preschoux • Romain Froquet • Kraken • 9eme Concept • Les Francs Colleurs • Saype

There is also a prolific programme throughout the exhibition:

New murals will be painted at the Pavillon Carré de Baudouin and in several Parisian districts,
A selection of pictures will be featured on the gates of the City Hall,
Workshops, conferences and screenings of films and documentaries.
A book accompanying the exhibition is available at Gallimard / Editions Alternatives

Big thanks to all the teams, artists, photographers, lenders and institutions that have participated to the exhibition, specially Clemence Demolling, as well as all the artists that have contributed to the scene over the past 60 years.

CAPITALE(S) – 60 ANS D’ART URBAIN

PARIS HOTEL DE VILLE ( Paris City Hall), 5 Rue Lobeau 75004 Paris

15 October – 25 March 2023

Free entry, but booking is essential here

Paris, Shows

Jef Aerosol – 40 years of stencils

September 26, 2022 butterfly

2022 marks the 40th anniversary of the first stencil by Jef Aerosol, French multi-talented artist (stencil artist, painter and musician) and one of the pioneers of Street Art and renown internationally.
Part of the first wave of street art in the 1980s, Jef Aerosol painted his first stencil in Tours, France in 1982, illustrating a self-portrait. Spanning across 40 years, Jef Aerosol’s work has been displayed in the streets and galleries worldwide, influencing many younger artists.

Under the curation of the Mathgoth Gallery, hundreds of artworks have been gathered for an extraordinary exhibition, hosted in a raw space of 600 square meters opposite the François Mitterrand Library in Paris. With free entry, the show runs until 5 November.

Jef Aerosol’s work is two folds. A part of the work is created in the public space, using multi-layered stencils to paper collages to creating black and white life size figures and animals in various situations, with a signature bright red arrow. Jef Aerosol often creates portraits of popular figures such as Elvis Presley, Gandhi, Lennon, Hendrix, Basquiat, Dylan, etc. But most of his work focuses on anonymous people from the streets: musicians, passers-by, beggars, children, and so on. The other takes place in calm and the intimacy of the studio in Lille where the artist designs his stencils and produces the pieces dedicated to the collections and to the galleries.

Jef Aerosol - 40 ans de pochoirs — Jef Aerosol – London 2008

Like his practice, this XXL exhibition is conceived in two folds, showcasing the work in the streets and the work conceived in the studio.

Upon entering, a large wall section features some photos, personal documents and videos that allows the public to discover the universe of the artist, his inspirations and witness the evolution of his 40 years of creation.

This space brings together studio works using recurring themes in Jef Aerosol’s work such as children, music, self-portraits, city landscapes and people.

But the jaw dropping space hosts a monumental immersive installation echoing the urban environment and its chaos, featuring 200 spray painted life-size figures on cardboard.

Jef Aerosol could not resist spraying in the surrounding areas :

Jef Aerosol – 40 ans de pochoirs
147 avenue de France, 75013 Paris
From 24 September 2022 to 05 November 2022

www.jefaerosol-40ansdepochoirs.fr

Festival, France, streets

Lek and Sowat Sandcastle for the LaBel Valette Festival

August 8, 2022 butterfly

Marking the fifth anniversary of the LaBel Valette Festival in France, artists Lek and Sowat have given a new identity to this 19th century castle, by painting all its surfaces and transforming it into a monumental sandcastle.

Located in Pressigny-les-Pins, around one hour from Paris by train, Château de la Valette sits on just under 100 acres of wooded land and is comprised of the castle, a chapel, and two three-storey dormitory buildings. After the colourful works of Okuda (2018), 3ttman (2019), the giant calligraphy of L’Atlas (2020) and the optical illusions of Astro (2021), this mythical duo open the LaBel Valette festival that will take place on August 26 and 27, 2022.

The LaBel Valette Festival, organised by UAC (Urban Art Crew) and U2A (Urban Art Agency), will take place on August 26 and 27, 2022 at La Valette estate in Pressigny-les-Pins.
The two days programme includes graffiti battles, a musical production competition, live painting, workshops as well as a series of music concerts. Full programme here

Check pictures of the work in progress below:

Lek and Sowat were struck by the intense history of the ‘Domaine de La Valette’. Firstly belonging to the estate of a Count and a Countess, it then became property of Franco, followed by the Spanish republicans. It was later transformed into a college, then fell into abandonment. And was bought by an individual. The castle holds eventually a strong position of Street Art in France thanks to the LaBel Valette Festival project.

The artistic duo decided to work around the image of the sandcastle, which refers to the ephemeral nature of Street Art, and pixels, which evoke the aesthetics of the 80s.
Using bright blue and neon colours, they painted 10 000 square meters to transform the castle entirely.
Lek and Sowat ’s Sandcastle illustrates this year’s theme of the festival “Believe in your dreams”: A sandcastle can be erased by the rising tide but is rebuilt thanks to the venue of a new artist. A sandcastle is fragile, requires attention and commitment. It is imagined, hoped for, then built.

Paris, Shows

Animal Secrets by Mark Ryden (Perrotin Paris)

July 22, 2022 butterfly

Perrotin and Kasmin are presenting a jointly organized exhibition of new work by American artist Mark Ryden (b. 1963, US). Running until 30 July, ‘Animal Secrets’ comprises 10 paintings and 12 works on paper that further develop the artist’s series of portraiture, featuring mysterious and mythical creatures created during lockdown.

Conceived alongside the artist’s most recent exhibition at Perrotin Tokyo, the resulting gallery of enchanted characters embodies the artist’s meticulously-realized signature blend of archetype, kitsch, and narrative mysticism.

Mark Ryden’s imaginative artistic play manifests itself through deep layers of meanings and connotations: mythology and folklore mingle in this baroque universe as if to better explain the secret order of the universe.

His interest in the subject of animals as spiritual entities was first explored in his series. For his exhibition ‘Anima Animals’ in Shanghai gallery, Mark Ryden completed his paintings in early 2020, just as the entire world went into Covid lockdown. During this time of isolation in his Pacific-Northwest studio, Mark Ryden began a new series that further explored his reverence for these animal beings that act as guides through a landscape of the unknown. The figures in these paintings are neither human nor animal, they are spiritual entities that create a bridge between the human and animal worlds in which so much disharmony exists.

The artist’s practice is an ode to craftsmanship and refined materiality, from exquisite pictorial imagery to lavishly carved and embellished frames. At the same time, the artist probes into the invisible and secret order of the universe and interprets the life of things that are filled with
spiritual essence.

Mark Ryden explores intimate anxieties and archetypes with a pop surrealist vision. Aesthetics juxtaposed with a certain folkore, taste for the bizarre, his style is distinguished by a remarkable technical mastery, with intricate details and symbols.

Several works in the exhibition are presented as ‘tavolettas,’ a handheld form common in Italy between the 14th and 17th centuries for devotional instruments of consolation.
The Tavoletta series’ composition resembles a full-face representation of Christ and other saints in the tradition of byzantine icons and late medieval portraiture.
A figure rendered in a symmetrical pose in the center of the picture directly looks at the viewer. This time-honored, artistic craftsmanship elevates heavily sentimentalized elements of American tradition and antiquity, collected as though for a cabinet of wonders. The laborintensive canvases deftly rework centuries of art history, combining the grandeur of Spanish and Italian religious painting with the layered richness of Old Master compositions.

Ryden’s enigmatic characters dwell in harmony with nature amidst idealized landscapes. His tranquil sceneries evoke the nostalgia of Romantic imagery with a dream of the lost Golden Age from classical antiquity to the present day. The power of this iconography is in its simplicity and balance, where an unavoidable piercing gaze of the mythical entity entices the beholder into a silent conversation. A longing for harmonious coexistence with nature, with each other, and oneself.

The friendly surroundings, pastel colours, fluffy coats, pale children with large melancholy eyes, reveal worrying signs. The perception of the half-unveiled mystery becomes a lyrical invitation to dream. The reminiscences of childhood and the mystical essence of cruel tales constitute the essence of a form of pantheistic spirituality through which, under the brush of the painter, the human being tries to reconcile with nature.

Animal Secrets become spiritual guides to connect us with the surrounding world with a sensitive, humanist philosophy.

Animal Secrets, Mark Ryden, Perrotin Matignon, 2bis avenue Matignon Paris 8.

France, Museum, Shows

Hisham Echafaki – Mirabilia Naturae at Musee Jean Larcena

May 26, 2022 butterfly

The Museum Jean Larcena, in Val d’Ocre, Burgundy, France, is pleased to open an exhibition of works by London based artist Hisham Echafaki entitled Mirabilia Naturae ( Wonders of Nature), curated by Butterfly Art News. The exhibition runs until 19 June 2022.

Hisham Echafaki is a self-taught multidisciplinary artist who has been exhibiting internationally for over fifteen years. The artist’s style is a mix between realism and surrealism and sometimes uses the trompe-l’oeil technique.

In 2013, for the David Bowie exhibition at the Victoria & Albert Museum in London, Hisham Echafaki produced an anthropomorphic portrait of the singer composed entirely of 66 animals with a surprising trompe-l’oeil effect to celebrate the 66^th Birthday of the singer.

In 2019 Hisham Echafaki was invited by the Musée de la Poste in Paris to illustrate the facade with a 13-meter fresco retracing the history of mailboxes and artistic movements.

The artist will well appreciated with the local residents of Val d’Ocre as in 2018 he painted a giant fresco featuring an Iberian tortoise to warn about this endangered species. The mural has been the mascot of Val d’Ocre since.

MIRABILIA NATURAE – Wonders of Nature

From the end of the XVII th Century, explorers illustrated their discoveries of new animal and plant species and named them in Latin.

With the exhibition ‘Mirabilia Naturae’, Hisham Echafaki pays tribute to these ancient explorers who show us the wonders of nature, and transports us to a universe where the beauty and diversity of fauna and flora are celebrated in all their patterns and colours.

The series on display includes works on canvas, works on paper and multi-dimensional paintings on resin or plexiglass.

Beyond aesthetic imagery and the celebration of the beauty of nature, the themes of the exhibition highlight issues of biodiversity, the conservation of threatened species and habitats, and the impact of Man on the evolutionary changes of animal species.

In parallel with his paintings, Hisham Echafaki has also created a particular and very meticulous technique of painting on resin and plexiglass whose rendering is three-dimensional. His almost realistic animal works are based on multiple superimposed and meticulous layers of paint, resin, creating an effect of perspective.

This series of multi-dimensional works attempts to capture the beautiful complexity and diversity of the animal world. Detailed pieces can take up to 15-30 layers and several months to complete.

Whether based on real or imaginary specimens, butterflies, fishes or bees are immortalized giving the optical illusion that they could have been living creatures. Presented as “faux taxidermy”, animals often have anthropomorphic features on their wings or bodies with recognizable patterns from art, design, science while others, such as aquatic creatures, are just more realistic.

Hisham Echafaki would like to thank all the people that helped him on this exhibition: local residents of Val d’Ocre, the core team of the Museum with Francoise Richez, Patrice Lagrange, Sylvie Marchand, Bernard Curnier, and also Bassim, David Chaumet and Butterfly who worked on the preparation of the exhibition.

Here are some pictures from the set up and the opening: