Street art goes inside with big exhibition

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October 16, 2016

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Street art goes inside with big exhibition

Source: Agencies | October 16, 2016, Sunday |

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NOT content with spray painting its way into the urban collective consciousness, street art is graduating to the gallery as Paris opens its first permanent exhibition of the genre.

After a Rome exhibition for British graffiti artist Banksy, French counterpart JR’s trompe l’oeil wrapping of the Louvre Pyramid and a feast of “Urban Exploration” at Villa Medicis, now comes a Parisian sequel — 150 works on permanent show at the Art 42 peer-to-peer learning centre.

The exhibition, which opens this month, is a further sign of how street art is establishing itself as an art form in its own right, some 50 years after early proponents used metro tunnels and handy walls as blank canvases.

Street art’s earliest incarnations may well conjure up visions of artists toiling surreptitiously in quasi-derelict surroundings on work that was merely decorative.

But British artist Banksy has notably and astutely used his creations to make powerful political points, not least with his take on the refugee crisis.

He recently depicted Steve Jobs as a migrant at the infamous Jungle camp in the French port of Calais to underscore that the late Apple guru’s biological father was a Syrian immigrant to the United States.

“The essence of street art is its militant wallscapes,” said Nicolas Laugero-Lasserre, who has lent 150 works from his own personal collection for the Paris exhibition. But remaining faithful to its “edgy” traditions hasn’t stopped street art from moving into the more formal world of museums, from Amsterdam and Saint Petersburg and now Paris with Berlin to follow next year.

Some, not least 1980s US American pioneer Futura 2000, have consciously chosen to head from the streets into the galleries. Laugero-Lasserre has amassed a sizeable collection of works from the likes of Frank Shepard Fairey, who was behind the “Hope” mural for Barack Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign, and Italian artist Blu, who allowed his Berlin murals to be painted over fearing they might fuel soaring real estate values.

The new permanent exhibition will feature works by Banksy and JR but also a range of lesser-known, emerging names from an ever-growing graffiti globe.

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Street art goes inside with big exhibition

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