THE JOKER

En marge de la société

 At the margins of society

One more mosaic example in Paris of the French street artist Invader's pixelated style inspired

by the late 1970's Japanese video game, Space Invaders. 

It may be well-executed as far as this genre goes, but coming across this image of The Joker 

on a shady side-street has a creepy effect.

I don't know who is keeping count of these, but there are reports that there are 

more than one thousand glued to walls in the capital city alone.  

For fans it has become a game to seek them out and "flash them" with their phones on dedicated

applications. In fact, according to an article in Le Figaro culture section, the artist himself developed 

such an app to "spot and flash" his works.

©2026 P. B. Lecron

WITH AND WITHOUT

It's amazing that this street-art mosaic of a decapitated Louis XVI is still up on this building in the Notre Dame quarter of Versailles. From all accounts, the pixel-like work is that of the urban artist known world-wide as Invader. In the summer of 2017 he stealthily and surreptitiously installed a series of mosaics high up on buildings in Versailles. His pseudonym makes reference to the popular video game, Space Invaders. Some of the mosaics in the royal city have been removed, some have remained for the decision of the mosaics' fate on private buildings has been left to property owners. For more examples of what was once up in Versailles, click here.

©2018 P. B. Lecron



Une nouveauté!
For the family that reads together:  a new children's story written by my daughter and illustrated by myself, Le lapin et la lune, is now available on Amazon. Its translation from the French, The Rabbit and the Moon, is likewise on sale.

CHEEKY

It takes a certain amount of cheek to permanently affix one's own effigy on a public thoroughfare; French street artist Gregos' has it. Numerous of his molded 3-D self-portraits have appeared in urban Parisian settings since 2006. All with different expressions. This one is on the corner of rue de Rivoli and rue Saint Roche. 

Vocabulary
du culot:  cheek, nerve

©2014 P.B. Lecron

PAINTING THE TOWN

I'm not a fan of graffiti per se, however, from time to time when riding an urban train, my gaze has been drawn to some amazingly colorful and gaudy, if not interesting works. But less and less; paint is more and more expensive.

Although the 1970s New York graffiti explosion didn't arrive in Paris until the 1980s, according to French sociologist Alain Vulbeau it wasn't until 1988 that the proliferation of tags, or scrawling signatures, became unbearable for the Parisian population. Journalists stopped speaking of graffiti in benevolent terms, and in the public mind, taggers were urban vandals exceeding the bounds of street art. Authorities put the brakes on the graffiti movement, especially for legally responsible adult graphistes, by criminalizing the defacement of public property and making violations punishable by high fines and prison sentences.

Paris, and other French cities with the financial means to do so, mobilized anti-tag cleaning forces. Since 2000 the mayor of Paris has hired two private enterprises to patrol and rapidly remove graffiti from private and public walls. The result is that within the city limits, on any given afternoon Paris seems to be remarkably tag free, the cleanup squads having already erased the previous nights' tags. In a single year, this amounts to more than 130,000 square meters of graffiti. (If you look closely, you might notice that the lower one to two meters of some buildings look much cleaner than the upper parts...due most likely to tag removal in the past.)

"Free spray" construction fence known as Espace Graff which has recently been removed at the Palais de Tokyo.

Another preventive measure has been to tolerate graffiti on certain walls within Paris to give graffeurs who paint large, colorful calligraphy "fresques" a place to express themselves. One of the most prominent "free-spray" walls had been a construction fence, known as the "Espace Graff" along the edge of the Palais de Tokyo, a building on the Seine dedicated to modern and contemporary art. Although that metallic palisade has been recently removed, puerile taggers continue to frequent the area, regrettably and regularly defacing the statuary of the reclining Nymphes.

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder...
While I'm on the subject, I should mention that what is intended to be the reference book of Parisian graffiti goes officially on sale today, November 29, 2010. It's twenty-seven years of archives depicted in some 2200 photos of heaven-only-knows how many kilograms of spray paint applied illicitly, and in some cases licitly, to create a multitude of calligraphies and pop imagery; an imagery that has notably marked the Parisian urban and suburban railway lines' landscapes as well as maintenance budgets. The 300 page Paris City Graffiti is being sold online at http://pariscitygraffiti.com/


This post is a continuation of the previous two posts and contains excerpts, with minor revisions,  from an article I wrote for France Today magazine, entitled Inside Outsider Art.


Text & photos © P.B.Lecron

THE FEMININE MISS.TIC

She toys with words

Miss.Tic's provocative stenciled self-portraits with pithy phrases and plays on words, are as pertinent as they are impertinent-- which must explain in part the wide appeal of this enduring Parisian street artist.

A phenomenal success and extremely active, she's spray-painted her way from the streets of Paris straight into galleries and institutions... and has received commissions from big names such as Longchamp, Louis Vuitton and Kenzo. One of her most memorable shows was sponsored by the city of Paris: a year-long open-air exhibit,  Femmes Capitales, for which she painted more than 100 stencils on buildings and walls throughout the 13th arrondissement. An about face for a street artist who had once been fined for property defacement in the early days of her career.


Miss.Tic's ironic works mirror the feminine mystique of the modern Parisian woman, in all her superficiality and profundity. She clicks so well with the public that she inspired a parody stencil, Miss.Toc.

Like Jérôme Mesnager, (see earlier post Puddle-Hopping Paris) Miss.Tic is a first generation Parisian street artist who began painting city walls in the 1980s to capture an immediate audience for her work. During this "avant tag" period, i.e., before tagging became a favorite activity of vandals in the late 1980s, the development of art in the streets was relatively well tolerated in Paris. Graffiti made its entrance into private galleries and became a part of the popular art heritage--a good ten years after the 1970s street art movement in New York.

The above text is an excerpt, with slight revisions,  from an article I wrote, Inside Outsider Art, which appeared in France Today magazine, and is published here with permission.  It is a continuation of my previous post, Puddle-Hopping Paris. More to come...


For complete Miss.Tic resources, including photos of her in action, click on http://www.missticinparis.com/

Text & photos © 2010 P.B. Lecron

PUDDLE-HOPPING PARIS

He's leapt and danced across decaying walls and condemned buildings since 1983. Now legendary, the naked, innocent figure known as the Corps Blanc, has puddle-hopped through Paris, then out into some 20 other countries, even scaling the Great Wall of China.

The ethereal white figure is the vintage creation of Jérôme Mesnager. Mesnager is among a handful of street artists who nearly thirty years after their clandestine graffiti debut have made their names in the art market. Whole sections of wooden fences bearing Mesnager's fetishized figure have been sold in galleries and auction houses. The medium is indeed a part of the message.

Catch me if you can

Rapidly painted freehand in some of the most unexpected places, Le Corps Blanc resembles a posable wooden mannequin come to life. The icon has withstood the test of time, despite the ephemeral nature of street art. Some disappear when buildings are razed or walls are cleaned and repainted, or when other graffiti artists cover them over. In certain neighborhoods, however, the streaking figures are sought after by property owners and have become a part of the local heritage, like the giant mural Mesnager painted high up on a building in the 20th arrondissement at 68 rue Ménilmontant.


Although a number of Corps Blancs can still be seen, especially in the Latin Quarter, Mesnager knows of only one in Paris that actually dates back to 1983. He's reluctant to say publicly where it is, for fear that taggers--the bane of any city dweller's existence--might blot it out with their own scrawling signatures. When a well-placed Corps Blanc does meet such a fate, Mesnager takes it in stride. "I usually wait until the city cleans away the tag, then I repaint."

That public authorities today distinguish between the differing forms of graffiti and leave his and other street artists' work in place is a triumph in itself for the artists. Mesnager recalls that once the city erased without notice a stencil on his own exterior wall that a top graffiti artist, Miss.Tic (pronounced mystique), had painted as a surprise for him. "I really was not pleased to lose my Miss.Tic!" he says, chuckling at the play on words.




The above text contains excerpts, with minor revisions,  from an article, Inside Outsider Art, which I wrote  based in part on a interview with Jérôme Mesnager. It originally appeared in France Today magazine and is republished with permission.



Text & photos ©2010 P.B.Lecron

For a zippy animated viewing of Le Corps Blanc, see http://mesnagerjerome.free.fr/
www.francetoday.com

VERSAILLES STREETS: IN THE MOOD FOR ART

 Très street art--watch your step


 "Even so, Versailles is the only place where I've ever seen a fleur-de-lys stenciled as graffiti," I said at a morning coffee with French friends when the conversation turned to graffiti and tagging. 


"Oh, that must have been my crazy cousin!" exclaimed one of the ladies.

"Really? How old is he?"
"Forty-five! He's a die-hard Royalist."


The next time I went out, I looked for the neatly spray-painted emblem of the French monarchy, but it had already gone the way of other graffiti and tags in Versailles, which are quickly removed by a city crew.



For the past couple of years, however, another genre of graffiti in Versailles has had longer staying power. Unobtrusive, and even beguiling, are fluid quick studies of human figures that an anonymous artist has painted on pedestrian markings. The artist executed the works dribbling paint from his finger, sometimes adding whimsical captions.


The pedestrian markings do get repainted from time to time and the streets repaved as a part of regular maintenance, but this hasn't deterred our local street artist; it's only provided him with fresh surfaces to work on. Engaging and non-aggressive, the charming, ephemeral figures fit the genteel mood of this very livable city and have transformed a  simple walk around town into an amusing photo op adventure. 

Text & photos ©2009 P.B. Lecron