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CAPITALE(S) 60 Years of Urban Art in Paris

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 3 June 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 – 3 June 2023

Free entry, but booking is essential here

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Toulouse: #Creve Hivernale / Decembrrrr 016

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December 2016.  A wasteland surrounded by barbed wire with a view on passing trains, home to travellers and less fortunate people. This is not a picture taken in a distant country, but actually in the center of Toulouse, France.

With Creve Hivernale / Decembrrr 016, local and international artists continue to raise a red flag and highlight the urgency of the current situation and socio-political climate in Europe, this time by gathering outside in this wasteland and creating immersive installations, visual and audio performances, as well as artistic collaborations with children and families living there .

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GUESTS  #CREVE HIVERNALE – DECEMBRRRR 016 … CONTINUUM …

NADIA VON FOUTRE (Toulouse) – JEAN DENANT (Sete) (?) – MANUEL POMAR (Toulouse) – A4 PUTEVIE (Toulouse) – MADEMOISELLE KAT (Toulouse) – SID POLIEKOFF (Toulouse) – MATHIEU TREMBLIN (Strasbourg) – TILT (Toulouse) (?) – MARDI NOIR (Rennes) –  UPGRAYYDD RECIDIVE (Toulouse) – MOLO MOLO (Toulouse) – CLAIRE SAUVAGET (Toulouse) – BERTRAND FRAYSSE (Toulouse) – DON QUICKSHOT (Toulouse) – LURK WARM (Toulouse) – BUTTERFLY (London) – SOPHIE BACQUIE (Toulouse) – LUCIE LAFLORENTIE (Toulouse ) – /+ OFF/ … ANNLOR CODINA (Toulouse) – NATALIE SVIT-KONA EIFYRAN (Toulouse) ) – /+ OFF/ …

From 16 Dec with ongoing interventions until the end of the year

Next event: 29 DECEMBER FROM 17:00

GPS  Location  : 43.632685, 1.475884

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Creve Hivernale - Toulouse

Release: Underground Does not Exist Anymore

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Fresh from their return from their one year artistic residency at Villa Medici, Lek & Sowat present their latest book  ‘Underground Does not Exist Anymore‘ together with curator Hugo Vitrani. The book retraces the events between December 2012 and June 2014, where the two artists supported by curator Hugo Vitrani invaded the Palais de Tokyo through various official interventions, secret or ephemeral .

What started out as a mural on a peripheral space of the institution then evolved into an ambitious long-term project. We look back at the project in more details, as we’ve been keeping the secret for a very long time…

John Giorno x Lek X Sowat - Palais de TokyoJohn Giorno x Lek X Sowat - Palais de Tokyo     John Giorno x Lek X Sowat - Palais de TokyoJohn Giorno x Lek X Sowat - Palais de Tokyo     John Giorno x Lek X Sowat - Palais de Tokyo

After a first collaboration with the American artist John Giorno ( see more here) Lek and Sowat were invited a second time to the Palais de Tokyo in December 2012 to paint on the walls of an emergency exit overlooking the technical premises of the museum. Rather than acting as a duo on the agreed space, the artists invited a dozen of graffiti artists including Dem189, Sambre, Wxyz, Katre, L’Outsider, Swiz, Rizot, Legz, Seth to join them and created an immersive installation by painting from the floor to the ceiling and began an urban exploration of the building.

Palais de Tokyo - ParisPalais de Tokyo - Paris    Palais de Tokyo - Paris      Palais de Tokyo - Paris     Lasco Project - Palais de Tokyo

In October 2013 with the complicity of the president of the Palais de Tokyo, Jean de Loisy, new spaces were made available and the project now titled ‘Lasco’ in tribute to the prehistorical cave paintings, the first wall paintings. Curator Hugo Vitrani with Lek and Sowat decided to pay tribute to French graffiti writers with individual dedicated spaces featuring Azyle, Bom.K, dran, Monsieur Qui, ….

In parallel to the authorized areas,  Lek and Sowat as well as invited artists like dran, Alëxone, Kan, Blo, Evol, Cleon Peterson  would also discreetly wander corridors, push doors, paint unofficially and create hidden or ephemeral installations,  illustrating the evanescent nature of graffiti and its ability to penetrate everywhere.

Palais de Tokyo - ParisLasco Project - Palais de Tokyo  Lasco Project - Palais de Tokyo  Lasco Project - Palais de Tokyo

The results can be seen within the video ‘Invisible Vandalism’.

 

Traces Directs / Direct Outlines

The book also features all the artists ephemeral interventions on a blackboard ( see our coverage here) from Philippe Baudelocque, Wxyz, Alëxone, Smo, L’Outsider, Sowat, Babs, Skki, Jay one, Tcheko, Apôtre, Kan, Seb174, Sambre, Nassyo, Popay (pictured below), Spé, Fléo, Lek, Dem189, Swiz to  Jacques Villeglé.

Popay

The short feature film Traces Directs is now part of the permanent collections of the Centre George Pompidou.

 

La Trappe 

Pushing their exploration of the building further and further, Lek and Sowat discovered a hatch leading to the ventilation lines underneath the Palais de Tokyo.

This is the epilogue of their artistic journey. Lek and Sowat adorned the narrowed and out of reach spaces with graffiti and with curator Hugo Vitrani invited legendary Mode2 and Futura to paint using ochre, black and white colours, reminiscent of the sacred prehistorical paintings in the Lascaux caves.   Large graffiti letters by Mode2  form the sentence  ‘Underground doesn’t exist anymore’.

Lasco Project - Palais de Tokyo                  Lasco Project - Palais de Tokyo Lasco Project - Palais de TokyoLasco Project - Palais de Tokyo     Lasco Project - Palais de TokyoLasco Project - Palais de TokyoLasco Project - Palais de Tokyo

View the full set of pics here

Due to the nature of the space and for security reasons, the Palais de Tokyo has now closed  the access to the hatch permanently. While these paintings will never be accessible to the public, they have been documented in the following video.

Underground Does not Exist Anymore by Lek &Sowat and Hugo Vitrani
ISBN: 978-2-91-917217-81-8
340 pages – Format 17 x 24 cm
Editions Manuella
€ 30 Available here

In parallel Le Palais de Tokyo just released a special issue  Palais Magazine #24 focussing on the urban interventions together with artist interviews from Andre, Azyle, dran, Craig Costello, Futura, Mode2 to Os Gemeos.

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Palais Magazine # 24
ISBN: 978-2-84711-071-5
216 pages – Format 22.5 x 28.5 cm
€ 15 Available here

 

London: Yayoi Kusama @ Victoria Miro

Yayoi Kusama

Victoria Miro is currently hosting a new exhibition by Yayoi Kusama.  Spanning the gallery’s three locations and waterside garden, the exhibition features new paintings, pumpkin sculptures, and immersive room experiences, all made especially for this presentation. This is the artist’s most extensive exhibition at the gallery to date, and it is the first time mirror rooms have gone on view in London since Kusama’s major retrospective at Tate Modern in 2012.

85 years old avant garde multidisciplinary artist Yayoi Kusama has developed a practice which resists any singular classification, though it shares affiliations with Surrealism, Minimalism, Pop art, the Zero and Nul movements, Eccentric Abstraction and Feminist art.

Her iconic dots patterns, pumpkins and mirror rooms is a lifelong exploration of the self’s relationship to the infinite cosmos. Her installations place the viewer within a universe of varying proliferating reflections.

New paintings displayed alongside these immersive rooms continue an enduring preoccupation with multiplying polka dots and dense scalloped ‘infinity net’ patterns – Kusama’s obsessive repetition of these forms on canvas, which she has described as a form of active self-obliteration, responds to hallucinations first experienced in childhood. The pumpkin, another motif that she has returned to throughout her career, is also present in the form of new mirror polished sculptures.

Yayoi KusamaYayoi Kusama     Yayoi KusamaYayoi Kusama     Yayoi Kusama
Yayoi Kusama
Yayoi Kusama
Yayoi Kusama     Yayoi KusamaYayoi KusamaYayoi KusamaYayoi KusamaYayoi Kusama     Yayoi Kusama     Yayoi KusamaYayoi Kusama

View the full set of pics here

Yayoi Kusama @ Victoria Miro
Until 30 July 2016
16 Wharf Road, London N1 7RW
14 St George Street, London W1S 1FE

Release: Nick Walker – The Last Ride Print

NW Print

Nick Walker (check the studio visit here) will have a new print on sale on Monday 12th October at 3.30pm DST UK time,  entitled The Last Ride.

The print is based on a portrait I took of the UK artist during a visit in Paris.  He’s wearing his signature Vandal outfit and umbrella while riding a carousel horse next to the Eiffel Tower. A quite surreal experience…

Produced in an edition of 150 on Somerset Satin 410 gms , measuring  66cm x 96 cm, it will be available for £400 online from  www.theartofnickwalker.com .

Nick Walker ride