Paris Street Art: Unexpected pleasures

Since most consider Paris the center of the artistic universe, it is no surprise that art is found adorning the walls, sidewalks, bridges, mail boxes and well, right on the street. A majority of it is some of it is the most superbly well thought out graphics I have witnessed in any city I have visited.
It wasn’t until I became acquainted with a graffiti-artist classmate that I was enlightened and educated to realize that most graffiti you see was a great deal more that merely colorful graphics (or annoying vandalism depending on your view). I have since become a huge fan of graffiti art, photographing and studying it wherever I go.


Saturated colors of tag graffoto surround a black + white piece "j'existe"
by a French artist that calls himself V.L.P "Vive la peinture!"

Some graffiti is the work of local gangs and crews tagging their turf, or cultish groups wanting to have a say. But behind many of these lively graphics there are serious working artists, developing new concepts and graffiti-esque philosophies attached to their vibrant works. In some form or another, graffiti art is found in all major cities and is very particular and specific to each city, region and country of the world.


minature mosaic on the Pont-des-Arts


mosaic detail

Being an artist of sorts myself, I empathize with the graffiti artists’ need to be seen and have their message heard by a larger audience. I guess you could say this type of art really speaks to me in a 21st century art-lingo I understand as well as voice of an art-piece in the Louvre. Perhaps is speaks louder and clearer. One thing for certain, street-art in general and graffiti in particular, has intensely sharpened my perception for "looking". I am more apt to see unusual beauty in the usual places. You don’t need a Carte de Musée to see these masterpieces. Anyone can see them, but hardly anyone does. In this journal I have highlight a few favorite street artists that are particular to Paris that I hope you will enjoy.


stencil-art on the street

I first saw just one word; elegant cursive handwriting in fresh white paint bright against the black pavement when I bent to tie a wayward shoelace. As I flanuered around Paris, I saw it again and again, on sidewalks, walls, Métro stops, lamp posts and benches around the city. "Amour, amour, amour…"


boulevard St-Michel

I eventually discovered that these words of love are the work of a broken-hearted watercolorist gentleman, one Monsieur Jean-Luc Duez. After his live-in-love of two years left him, he began to write "je t'aime" dozens of times along her street, continuing all the way on the path she walked to work. Apparently she was pretty annoyed and obtained a restraining order against his and this type of activity near her habitudes.


"Amour" written over a
sensual graffiti by Jerome Mesanger

Eventually Jean-Luc changed his affectionate concept to include everyone, not just his lost lady-love and began to write the word "Amour" all over different portions of the city of Paris each day. He tags his message in white paint or chalk which is easily washed away by the green-suited street cleaners each morning. But the next evening, the loving script returns a hundred times more. No matter what continues to drive this lovelorn monsieur, I am glad he is still out there writing words of love. We all need a little more "Amour" in our lives, non?


"Amours" all around this city of romance

The graceful human figures are produced by graffiti artist Jerome Mesnager. It is said that Mesnager's white figure emerged from a meditation on light. The consistently-rendered figures are read in the same way as a stencil, which at first I thought they were, but they are all drawn free-hand.


runner framed by blue shutters on rue Lafayette

His white spectral figures meander the streets of Paris at night, climbing, cavorting, dining, dancing, loving but leaving a distinctive imprint on doors and walls. I read an interview with Jerome Mesnager published in a recent copy of an avant-garde art periodical. When asked as to his methods of producing the elegant graffiti, he stated, "When I find the right door or wall, everything goes fast. I jump against the wall in the pose I want to represent and I paint very fast. It takes 26 seconds." Wow, I honestly would love to see that!


déjeuner sur l'herbe: manet/mesnager

It is said that Mesnager chooses his sites carefully and, like most Parisian wall artists, he finds that the oldest surfaces are the most inviting: the catacombs, ancient stone walls and derelict façades. I found the most beautiful reperesentations of love and humanity are in the most derelict of areas of Paris. I am sure that is the artist's plan.


ghosts dance over the façade on passage de la Duée

His white figures has been seen as far from Paris as the Great Wall of China and near the pyramids of Egypt. "The little white man wanders/He is a luminous ghost/He haunts deserted places" - from a 1989 poem by Mesnager.


let us love

I learned that Nemo made his first stencil in 1980 for his children and their playmates in Belleville, one of the working-class districts of Paris where he has lived 20 years. Since then, Nemo has remained a central figure among the Parisian pochoiristes. The term "pochoiriste" comes from the French word "pochoirs," meaning stencil. Therefore, a "pochoiriste" is a type of graffiti artist that applies most of their art with the use of stencils. There are dozens of other pochoiristes around Paris and its banlieues (suburbs) such as Miss.tic, Mosko, and Blek, just to name a very few. With so many artists, there is enough variety in concept and genre to tickle anyone’s imagination.


man, balloon and bateau

Most of Nemo’s images seem to spring from a child’s point of view of cats, boats, planes, umbrellas, bicycles, birds, and other fanciful shapes. His black silhouetted man is at times in motion: chasing a flocks of bird or bright balloons, whisking along in boats or on bikes, or pursuing his wind-blown umbrella. But sometimes he is just sitting or standing in some improbable craggy place, perhaps upside-down. His images can carry a wild exuberance or a wistful, dreamy quality. Nemo and Jerome Mesnager are good friends as well as colleagues in graffiti art and often go out together to make art out in the city. Here is a collaborative effort of the two of them that I found.


Nemo’s silhouetted man and Mesnager’s white ghost
meet for a glass and a toast

Like other pochoiristes, Nemo stencils his colorful wizardry primarily in the poorer districts of Paris. Sometimes they encompass entire derelict facades or crumbling stone walls as a vibrant affirmation that beauty can exist beauty in the midst of decay. Lately I have seen more and more Nemo masterworks pop up in the moneyed arrondissements of Paris. I am glad that Nemo has included all classes in dispersing smiles to the city’s children (and adults).


circus Nemo

This particular graffiti is not painted or stenciled but posted as an intricate mosaic of small to medium square blocks or tiles. The squares or cubes are comprised of colorful pieces of glass squares, plastic Rubik cube pieces, or ceramic tiles, all used to form the visage of the famous game icon.


attractive tiled invader on rue de Seine, St-Germain-des Prés

The mosaics are placed strategic places aiming at "invading" our visual space. There is a huge worldwide cult following and multiple artists as well as stylistic approaches to forming these little aliens dudes. Sometimes the spaceman is also accompanied by a Rubik cube image.


invaded by lamplight:rue de Rivoli

Just last week a Parisian friend sent me a photo she took of a new larger-than-life Rubik space invader sculpture called "The Big Rubik Galaxian." It was formed by 1 foot-by-1 foot multicolored cubes that stand atop Le Pont Ephémère (Centre de Dynamiques Artistiques) at the Quai de Valmy. It is located in the Canal St-Martin district between Stalingrad and Louis Blanc near the Métro station Jaurès. You can see it yourself if you hop on the Métro in the direction of Nation.


"The Big Rubik Galaxian" photo by Yoko Y.

This graffiti is not particular to Paris, but since the invasion began in the late 1990s, it has marauded over to Montpelier, Grenoble, Geneva, Bern, Munich, Avignon, Rotterdam, Manchester Tokyo, New York, LA, and as far away from the Paris source as Perth, Australia. The trendy Invader web site sells the fairly expensive book I invade Paris that was published after several space invader and Rubik artists had installations at several respected Paris galleries. It touts Paris as the most invaded city in the world.


My brand new copy of I invade Paris

My favorite invader item in the book is the handy little map of the locations of the vibrant tile alien lifeforms. My map is already packed for my return trip to Paris to snap more of my favorite galaxian guys.


Invaded on rue Valadon

This large yellow graffiti graphic is the one that lured me into the graffiti world of Paris. Was it his enigmatic smile that he knew something I didn’t? It was during the early spring of 2001 that I first saw Monsieur La Cat, or Mr. Cat. By the end of the summer, dozens of cats had appeared all over the city of Paris as well as other cities in France. I hadn’t a clue as to the artist or what his message could be. The grinning feline just seemed to be one of the most pleasant, positive, and vibrant of the tags that were posted around the arrondissements. And I have to say that I was in total awe of anyone who would take his art so seriously that they would climb to such great heights to show their creations. These grinning felines nearly always smiled down from their painted perches far above the ground on a roof gable or chimney piece.


Can you find Monsieur Le Chat?

In more recent times, 2004 to be exact, filmmaker Chris Marker, of La Jetee fame, precursor to the film 12 Monkeys, made a political essay called Chat perches (Perched Cats) starring my yellow friend with the Cheshire grin. He states in the film that, "Not long after the shock of September 11, cats started appearing on the rooftops of Paris. Simply drawn, perfectly realized, they smiled their big smiles." The filmmaker goes looking for signs of M. Chat, the anonymous artist (or collective) that has been leaving grinning graffiti felines on the streets of French cities. Besides Paris, Monsieur Chat is seen in cities all over France: Blois, Ile de Ré, Nantes, St Etienne, and Tours. In following the cat’s steps, Chris Marker depicts the very recent French history--that includes elections, demonstrations, and state scandals--through the perceptive eye of this strange graffiti.

Voici le chat !
Here he is !

This film has some good points, but it has the usual feel and flow of political documentaries that are loosely strung together with a concept taken totally out of context. Though some of the history might be accurate, it still feels false and weak. Perhaps it felt all the falser to me, as I personally know the big smiling cats were in place well before 9/11. Because I knew that the filmmaker was stretching the truth for concept of the film, it is hard for me to believe his other facts. The film was billed as a factual historical political essay but played as historical fiction. I guess the biggest disappointment was that I was hoping for was more information on the creator(s) of the my favorite Chat perches.
Sigh... foiled again.


Monsieur chat at the Écoles des Beaux arts

Monsieur Chat is a true graffiti rock star and icon that has a colossal cult following all over the world. The main website, http://www.monsieurchat.org/, is absolutely worth a look if you like smart, intelligent interactive graphics. It has an archive of newspaper and magazine article feature anything related to Monsieur Chat. You move through the cat's house on yellow interactive aroors that take you to a studio, an interactive party (you can choose the music the DJ plays), and a slide show you can control. You can also learn how to make a stencil to tag a Monsieur Le Chat in your own hometown. Hmmm...


Monsieur chat in Montmartre

No matter how you wish to view the reason for the yellow guy’s big sunny feline grin, a political statement or simply a reminder to us to smile, he feels much more interesting when you know a bit about his personality and perhaps why he got up onto the roofs of Paris.