Category Archives: Paris

Paris: Street Art Guide

Paris is an open air museum! Looking up, we can discover amazing pieces from graffiti writing, humourous stencils , poetic collages or monumental murals. We take you through the best locations in Paris to enjoy art in the streets from the festive district of Oberkampf via the 13th arrondissement or the suburbs.

From Montmartre to Butte-aux-Cailles , you have to open your eyes because each crossing is a pretext for creation and in many places in Paris, colourful frescoes have covered  concrete walls.

In recent years, the 13th arondissement of Paris is the favourite spot for street artists and has today become a true open-air museum ! In the vicinity of the National metro station, in the rue Jeanne d’Arc and the boulevard Vincent Auriol, it is possible to observe more than thirty murals! The American artist Shepard Fairey has produced several of them, from Rise above Rebel ( which we helped organise with the Mayor of 13th District) and one bearing the French motto: ” Liberty, equality, fraternity “.

Next door, a mosaic of several meters high representing the whimsical doctor of television series Doctor House is signed by French artist Invader .  The artist also invaded the city with other 1600 mosaics, so look up when wandering around.

Throughout the neighbourhood, you only have to walk around to discover a masterpiece, from Tristan Eaton, Okuda,  Bordalo or the colossal fresco “Embrace and Struggle” depicting two men facing each other in 18th century clothes. , made by the Irish painter Conor Harrington.

East of Paris, the districts of Oberkampf , Belleville and Ménilmontant are high places of street art. Thanks to the action of associations like Le MUR , some facades even have their own artistic programming!  Every two weeks, a new artist is invited to paint at 107 rue Oberkampf (11th). The performance takes place during the day and in public, a real treat for the eyes!

Lek & Sowat

Going up in rue de Ménilmontant (19th), there is an iconic fresco by Jérôme Mesnager : characters form a round and sing to the glory of the musical past of the neighbourhood. Higher up in the same street is the facade of Pavillon Carré de Baudoin which is repainted regularly by renowned artists like Lek & Sowat.

Finally,  you can enjoy a bit of nature while admiring art by wandering through the park of Belleville (20th) where frescoes of street artists such as Seth or Pez adorn walls and pillars.
In the center of Paris, the Halles district to Serge Gainsbourg’s home are the artists’ playground.

On the Igor-Stravinsky Square (4th District) for example, a fresco of 350 square meters shows the enigmatic face of a man inviting silence: a monumental stencil work signed Jef Aerosol .

On the other side of the Seine, Rue de Verneuil (7th),  the house occupied by the singer and poet Serge Gainsbourg is regularly covered with graffiti , drawings, paintings and collages, paying tribute to the musician Since his death in 1991.

Finally if you fancy travelling in the vinicity of Paris, Vitry sur Seine is a town dedicated to Street Art thanks to the artists and local authorities.

Paris: FIAC 2017 Highlights

After Frieze, the art world is gathering once more for the 44th edition of the International French Contemporary Art Fair (FIAC) in Paris. As the fair drew to a close this week end, we look back at the highlights amongst the 193 modern and contemporary art galleries from 30 countries filling the Grand Palais , like  Flame of Desire  a five meters high golden sculpture by Takashi Murakami featured at Galerie Perrotin.


Jeppe Hein


Andrea Bowers


Tomas Saraceno

John Giorno

Kohei Nawa

Photo Credit: Celine Neveux for Butterfly Art News

FIAC
18-22 October 2017
Paris

Paris: Urban Week in La Defense

For its 4th edition the Urban Week festival returns to the business district of La Defense in Paris from 20 -23 September 2017 with a series of events celebrating street culture from street art, music, sports and food.

Through the project SAATO, 18 international artists are doing live painting sessions: MUG (AUS), BRUSK (FR), VESOD (IT), MONSTA (FR), STOM 500 (FR), BANE&PEST (CH), WISE TWO (Kenya), KALOUF (FR), MR CENZ (UK), BELIN (ES), NEAN (BE), DOES (NL) DEGE (FR), RNST (FR), MOMIES (FR), INSANE 51 (GR), RUSS (FR), MR DHEO (PT).

Photo credit : Celine Neveux for Butterfly Art News

URBAN WEEK
20 -23 September 2017
Paris La Defense

Paris: Elzo Durt – Colors & Glory

Elzo Durt

With the 10th year anniversary of the music label Born Bad Records and the release of a monograph entitled “Complete Works”, Belgian graphic designer and illustrator Elzo Durt is showing 13 years of illustration in an exhibition called ‘Colors & Glory’ at the Gallery du Jour in Paris

With more than a hundred exhibitions to his credit, dozens of projects and album covers, Elzo Durt is one of the most prolific and recognizable illustrators. After a good decade spent imposing a heavy and abrasive style made of creepy and psyche collages within the punk and techno scenes of Brussels, he has, in a few years, colonized the imagination of the French rockers by becoming the main illustrator of Born Bad Records and creating his own label, Teenage Menopause.

The exhibition starts in a psychedelic kitchen from the 1950s, giving the visitor a feeling of drunkenness but also inviting him into a psychedelic universe to discover one hundred and thirty works (posters, record covers …) including 15 of its most iconic pieces as well as some previously unseen works and ends in a gothic-punk church of the future.

 

Elzo Durt
Elzo DurtElzo Durt
Elzo DurtElzo Durt

As the ultimate fan of underground music, Elzo, and his Parisian friend Francois Froos, launched their own music label Teenage Menopause Records in 2011, dedicated to punk and techno.
A monumental fresco of 1.80 meters by 4 meters bringing together forty small paintings into a futuristic pope is dedicated to his friend Froos.

Elzo Durt

Elzo Durt

But Elzo Durts’ universe does not resonate only with these two styles or movements, as he multiplies borrowings and winks, drawing from the world history of graphic design and posterism: from military propaganda of the twentieth century Sci-fi comics; Art Nouveau to Russian constructivism; or from the psychedelic art of the 1960s and 1970s to the flyers of the late 1980s announcing the first raves.

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Elzo Durt
Elzo Durt
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Elzo Durt

View the full set of pics here

Elzo Durt – Colors & Glory
Galerie du Jour
Rue Cinquapoix Paris

Paris: John Giorno

John Giorno

Cahier d’Arts in Paris presents a series of prints of the works by New York artist John Giorno, as well as four new painting poems until the end of August.

Part of the New York underground scene in the mid sixties, John Giorno was the main actor in Andy Warhol’s first film ‘Sleep’ in 1963. He was also very close to the ‘beat’ movement and to William S. Burroughs. His main concern at the time was to make poetry accessible to popular culture.

In 1965, he founded Giorno Poetry Systems, a non-profit organization that started several musical groups and also became a label that published about forty albums. In 1968, he created Dial-a-Poem, a mass telephone service (in fact the first of its kind) that offered poems to the people who dialed the number and received millions of calls. Giorno has published a dozen collections of poems, as many albums, video works, and has given many performances since the past forty years.

A portfolio of recent works of the artist is illustrated in the last issue of the magazine Cahiers d’Art 2016-2017 and presented at the Palais de Tokyo.

John GiornoJohn Giorno
John GiornoJohn Giorno
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John Giorno Cahier D'artsJohn Giorno Cahier D'arts
John Giorno Cahier D'arts
John Giorno Cahier D'arts

View the full set of pics here

John Giorno – Cahier D’Arts
Until end of August
14-15 rue du Dragon 75006 Paris