For the summer 2025, Butterfly Art News is pleased to curate the exhibition “Street Art JoigNY – Street Art de New York a Joigny” retracing the Street Art movement from its origins 60 years ago to its global phenomenon.
For the past two decades Butterfly Art News has been documenting the artists’s creative process in situ, from their studios to their street interventions and exhibitions.
Featuring works from 70 international artists combined with photographic archives from Butterfly Art News and artistic collaborations, the exhibition dresses a wide panorama of this artistic movement, from the graffiti pioneers to a cartography of street artists across the globe, with its variety of techniques and tools.
Palazzo Esposizioni Roma presents L’ultimo meraviglioso minuto, an exhibition by contemporary Italian artist Pietro Ruffo, from 29 October until 16 February 2025.
Curated by Sébastien Delot, Director of the collections and mediation of the Musée National Picasso in Paris, the show is the largest solo exhibition by Ruffo ever held by a public institution to date.
Through more than 50 works, mostly created specifically for this exhibition, the artist explores the impact of Man on planet Earth, exploring the legitimacy of the term Anthropocene, the alleged geological era of man, and condensing the history of our planet and knowledge, and pays a great tribute to the City of Rome.
The exhibition plays on the dilation and contraction of time and space, the history of the planet and humanity—within the singular space and time of the encounter with the artworks.
The exhibition begins 55 million years ago. The title of the first room, Le monde avant la création de l’homme (The World Before the Creation of Man), is borrowed from the book by Camille Flammarion, subtitled “origines de la terre, origines de la vie, origines de l’humanité” ,1886.)
Ruffo outlines the characteristic elements of this planet. Using a ballpoint pen, he draws a primordial forest, creating an immense curtain (700 square metres) running along the entire perimeter of the space (Primordial Forest), surrounding visitors with images of plants and minerals, that evokes the time when tropical jungles covered much of the Earth’s surface.
The room is intersected by a large self-supporting structure (4 metres by 21), on which he depicts a section of the Grand Canyon, painted in ink on canvased paper using the camaïeu technique (utilising different tones of the same colour, in this case, burnt sienna). Beyond this grand structure, the public finds themselves walking among traces of the Earth’s past life: 21 circular works of varying sizes, titled De Hortus, floating like water lilies on the white floor, creating a chromatic atmosphere of great visual impact.
The exhibition journey then moves into the Anthropocene, the geological era in which the Earth’s environment—understood as the sum of the physical, chemical, and biological characteristics that support and evolve life—has been influenced by the effects of human activity.
“If we boil down the Universe’s 13.8 billion years to a period of twelve months, the dinosaurs would appear around Christmas time – unbelievable! – while the first Homo Sapiens would only arrive on the scene a few minutes before the New Year’s fireworks.”
It is to these fleeting last minutes of our planet’s history that the subsequent three rooms are dedicated, where Pietro Ruffo explores human intervention in search of ‘marvel’.
In the second room, which showcases works on canvased paper, with cuts and ink drawings, visitors are immersed in a visual archive symbolically retracing the steps of our ancestors’ evolution, from the Neanderthal skulls of Saccopastore to votive figurines, the first emblem of abstract thought upon which societies are built.
In the third room, with a radical change of scenery, visitors are enveloped in a video installation titled The Planetary Garden, created in collaboration with Noruwei. Inspired by the eponymous text by French philosopher Gilles Clément, the work gives three-dimensional form to the movement, shift, and transformation of the landscape over time.
The final room, titled Antropocene attraverso le stratificazioni di Roma(The Anthropocene Through the Stratifications of Rome), features works entirely dedicated to the city. What was Rome like 2,777 years ago, at the time of its founding? And even earlier, when the streets we walk today were trodden by jaguars and rhinoceroses? Starting with the famous maps of the city by Giovanni Battista Nolli (1701-1756) and Luigi Canina (1775-1856), Ruffo overlays these with unexpected glimpses of natural landscapes, offering a novel walk through the history and prehistory of the Roman territory. The works in this room allow visitors to move from the depths of the sea (Anthropocene 77, Rome Under the Sea), to the primordial forest (Anthropocene 92, Rome Covered by a Primordial Forest), and then to the theatre of great architectural constructions (Anthropocene 51, Rome Imperial Period; Anthropocene 53, Rome Porta Maggiore, and others). The anthology of landscapes explored in these works presents a mosaic of historical and hypothetical future moments, in which each transformation is simultaneously the consequence of natural events and human intervention. Cuts in canvased paper, pen drawings, oil paintings, and reliefs come together in a compositional harmony that invites deep observation.
The palaeoclimatologist Rebecca Wragg Sykes, in her renowned work Neanderthals: Life, Art, Love and Death, referring to Carl Sagan’s ‘cosmic calendar’, writes:
The exhibition also features a catalogue curated by Sébastien Delot, with contributions from the curator, Guido Rebecchini, Rebecca Wragg Sykes, and Sofia Di Gravio, published by Drago.
Through marvel, Pietro Ruffo’s works offer a unique visual and immersive experience, shedding new light on the environmental issues that permeate our everyday existence in society.
The French artist Invader is taking over an entire building in central Paris and transforming it into a space station: the INVADER SPACE STATION. It’s a strategic location, 11 rue Béranger (75003) in the former offices of the newspaper ‘Libération’. Back in 2011 Invader created a giant mural on its rooftop, visible from satellite.
Curated by Fabrice Bousteau, editorial director of Beaux Arts Magazine, this massive exhibition of 3500 m² spans accross the last four floors of the nine storey building.
Upon entering the INVADER SPACE STATION, we are immersed with a SPACE BATTLE, a large scale installation made of road dividers you might see on construction sites. The artist invites the viewer to look again at our surroundings during our everyday ‘s life. Invader mentions : ‘Somewhere between ready-made, arte povera and installation, I’ve used them here to recreate the army of pixelated aliens as seen on the opening screen of the game Space Invaders’. Full with lighting effects and sound !
INVASION OF PARIS
Since 1998 the artist has been leveraging the city of Paris as his playground. A gigantic map displays all 1500 mosaics installed in the streets of Paris with their exact location, as well as close up pictures of each individual ones in chrononological order, showcasing the artist’s prolific nature across 25 years.
We have the opportunity to view from a telescope the latest mosaic in Paris, named PA1500 which has just been revealed at the Centre Pompidou, Museum of Contemporary Art.
FLASHINVADERS APP
A screen displays a real-time stream of all the successful flashes on the FLASH INVADER app. Long before the app Pokemon Go, INVADER set up the FlashInvaders app in 2014. To participate, players just need to ‘flash’ (photograph) the mosaics in the streets throughout the world. Based on the photo and the player’s position, when the information is validated, the app adds the piece to their collection and the player gains some points and progress through the global ranking of players. Gathering 350,000 players and almost 23 million validated flashes, there is indeniably a strong community.
INVADING THE WORLD
The illegal mosaic invasion has taken on a planetary dimension from the start and INVADER travelled extensively to surprising locations to spread its mosaics around the world. Featured in a chronological order, a selection of pictures offers the viewer a glimpse of the international scope and insane risk taking and energy deployed during 25 years, to place mosaics in various cities internationally as well as reaching deep sea levels and outer space in the ISS station.
VIDEOS AND PROJECTION ROOM
Through his through his various missions, INVADER has also captured hundreds of thousands of photographs, as well as many hours of footage INVADER SPACE STATION shares some gems from the artist’s own archive on video loops as well as a large projection room with different screening programmes through the weeks.
ARTWORKS
In parallel to INVADER’s street illegal practice, the artist has also been producing artworks .
A section is dedicated to a retrospective of all INVADER’s works on paper, from screenprints, etchings to lithographs.
Since 2005, the artists has been incorporating Rubik’s cubes to create figurative sculptures and paintings called ‘Rubikcubism’, transforming a playful object into an artistic medium.
For the first time we discover that INVADER is also a big collector of Kinder Surprise figures, and is looking to use them in his practice as artistic material.
PARTICIPATE
Stickers are a big part of the INVADER community. From automated sticker machines, where visitors can buy and swap their collector items, to a massive participative wall where anyone can stick it. So bring your stickers and be part of the INVADER SPACE STATION !
Celebrating his 1500th piece in Paris at the top of Contemporary Art Museum Centre Pompidou, the French artist Invader is taking over an entire building in central Paris and transforming it into a space station: the INVADER SPACE STATION.
Located 11 rue Béranger (75003) in the former offices of the newspaper ‘Libération’ ( which were invaded by the artist back in 2011), the exhibition is curated by Fabrice Bousteau, editorial director of Beaux Arts Magazine.
This massive exhibition of 3500 m² accross nine floors will feature pictures, videos, sculptures and installations. So get ready to be invaded.
A major new exhibition exploring the irresistible force of cuteness in contemporary culture will be opening at the Somerset House in London from 25 January to 14 April 2024 .
Starting of with the celebration of the cat, to the influence of the japanese culture of cuteness ‘Kawaii’, CUTE brings together contemporary artworks, including new artist commissions, and cultural phenomena such as music, fashion, toys, video games and social media.
From emojis to internet memes, video games to plushie toys, food to loveable robotic design, cuteness has taken over our world. But how has something so charming and seemingly harmless – adorable, doe-eyed animals, chubby-cheeked babies, flowers, hearts, stars, sweets and other such romantic motifs – gained such traction?
Examining the world’s embrace of cute culture and how it has become such an influential measure of our times, the exhibition will seek to unravel cuteness’ emotive charge, revealing its extraordinary and complex power and potential.
Contributing artists include Mark Leckey, Sean-Kierre Lyons, Aya Takano, Mike Kelley, Karen Kilimnik, Nayland Blake, Cosima von Bonin, Hannah Diamond, Ed Fornieles, Juliana Huxtable, Rachel Maclean, Julien Ceccaldi, Paige K. B., Isaac Lythgoe, Alake Shilling, Wong Ping, Liv Preston, CFGNY, Ram Han, Maggie Lee, Bunny Rogers, Flannery Silva, Andy Holden, plus Somerset House Studios artists Chris Zhongtian Yuan, Sin Wai Kin and Sian Fan.
The exhibition will also feature a games arcade for all ages and will spotlight and celebrate the 50th anniversary of one of cute’s most iconic and ubiquitous figures, Hello Kitty, in partnership with Sanrio.
butterflyartnews.com 