Since its opening in the fall, the Capitale(s) exhibition has been a full house at the Hôtel de Ville and has even gone into extra time. It's time to book your (free) tickets for a bubbling dive into the Parisian history of graffiti and street art ...
A historical exhibition
As paradoxical as it may seem, it is " the gentleman expo " of the Paris City Hall, Thomas Fansten , who is at the origin of this event honoring artists who are often more associated with vandals than with creative geniuses. Pursued by the police and the RATP for degradation of public property, the latter now invade the walls of the exhibition hall of the Hôtel de Ville with the encouragement and applause of Anne Hidalgo .
Despite the detractors, with no less than 50,000 visitors per month, it's a success! Under the direction of four curators, Magda Danysz , gallery owner, Elise Herszkowicz , director of the Art Azoï association, Marko 93 , artist and Nicolas Laugero-Lasserre , co-founder of Fluctuart , no less than 70 artists tell stories in a chronological journey as fascinating as teeming with 60 years of artistic effervescence.
Immersion in street cred
From the pioneers ( Jacques Villeglé , Zlotykamien , Ernest Pignon Ernest ) to the precursors of the bomb ( Bando, Jay1, Futura, Rammellzee ) until the rocking of street art in 2000 with André , Zevs or Invader , which unveils for the first time a map of the 1,475 Invaders placed in Paris, this major retrospective reminds us of the preponderant place of the Parisian scene in this planetary movement.
28 works produced in situ by big names such as Seth , Kraken , Psyckoze , Kashink … underline the contextual dimension of this popular and subversive art at the same time. The impasse has not been made on the fight against tags and graffiti , thanks to INA archives which plunge us back into the case of the Louvre-Rivoli station covered in tags.
Videos take us to the catacombs or the Mausoleum , this former supermarket transformed into an arty temple with bombs and paintbrushes. The immersion in the calligraphic gesture continues thanks to the device of the Graffbox imagined by Cristobal Diaz , totally fascinating.
Outdoor programming
The exhibition is completed by an outdoor route. Starting with the Tuileries tunnel , where some forty artists worked on the 860 meters of walls of this underground tunnel that has become a Lascaux of modern times. Access is from the Place de la Concorde via the Quai des Tuileries or by the low quays, at the level of the Pont Neuf . The globe painter Seth intervened on the pillars of the Belvédère de Belleville and in the amphitheater below. Other permanent frescoes are in WIP like that of Popay , on the banks of the Seine below the Musée d'Orsay, or of Alexöne and Zepha which will complete the open-air museum that Paris has become.
Thursday from 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. and Monday to Wednesday and Friday and Saturday from 10 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. Exhibition closed on public holidays Until March 25, at the Hôtel de Ville, salle Saint-Jean, 5 , rue Lobeau, 4th . Free admission, registration on exposition-paris.info .
Also discover the flamboyant exhibition of the Institut du Monde Arabe and the couture kimonos of the Quai Branly museum.
