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Looking at the same landscape over long periods of time can cause the vision to blur, skim, or otherwise shift to an engagement based more on habit than curiosity. This sometimes becomes the case in my research on graffiti or street art. It is easy to tell a reliable narrative about an art object through…

Cabinet d’Amateur. Paris, France. Photo Credit: Caitlin Bruce Lille- Hors les Murs, a collaborative show with Jef Aérosol, Mimi the Clown, Mister P, and David Veroone, at Cabinet d’Amateur from March 27th to April 18th, offers a diverse exploration from Lille artists of small format experimentation in gallery-based street art. The idea of street art…

In The Transmission of Affect Teresa Breannan describes affective force as a sort of contagious force. One can catch the blues from another, and equally, be infected with shared joy. Thierry O., best known as Epi2mik, a street artist from Caen, Normandie, opened his ephemeral show 22 March 2014 at Cabinet d’Amateur in the 11eme arrondissement,…

RERO. “The invisible is in the visible beyond the look.” Backslash Gallery, Paris. February 2014. Photo credit: Caitlin Bruce RERO, a French street artist, is known for his strike-through text, inscribed within (and upon) prestigious art institutions such as the Centre Pompidou and the Grand Palais, as well as abandoned spaces (Backslash Gallery Exposition Summary)….

How can we generate a reading of public art objects that accounts for the social life of their production, their expressivity, as well as the public interest or disinterest that they inspire? By reading public art as longitudinal process, that carries the traces of its social imprints, falling somewhere between authorial intent and numerically accountable…

Mygalo. “Faites comme eux…” Paris, February 2, 2014. Photo Credit: Caitlin Bruce “Faites comme eux, gardez la tête froid,” announces the stark black and white caption for Mygalo’s recent work on le MUR X.I.I.I., under Pasarelle Simone de Beauvoir. Mygalo’s installation showcases two skeletons holding hands in a graveyard. The saying, “Gardez la tête froid,”…

L’Art Pour la Paix is a diverse exhibit that unites artists from the U.S., France, and many parts of Africa, in meditating on the question of peace. Notably, however, the majority of the work center on questions of violence, repression, and haunting memories in negotiating a more peaceful present. Collection Signe de vie. Mathilde Moreau….

February 4 to 8 marks the Hip Hop Art’Mature Festival  at Issy-les-Moulineaux, just south of Paris. Among the many activities scheduled this week, including sketch competitions, beatmaking, and dance performances, was the screening of Hélier Cisterne’s 2013 film, Vandal. Vandal is a coming of age film that explores adolescence, love, and graffiti, situated in Strasbourg. Following…

Swoon is a street artist based in Brooklyn, NY, who is world famous for her haunting ephemeral pieces, created using an iconic hand-drawn style, depicting human beings from all walks of life involved in a variety of activities. Her recent show in Paris, titled “Motherlands” and located at Gallery L.J. in Paris’ Oberkampf district, offers…

This is going to be polemical. To say so is somewhat paradoxical, because, as a space, 5Pointz was often not that. It was playful, whimsical, a mashup of different styles, texts, images, and references. Above all, it was a rare physical gathering place for graffiti artists and supporters of graffiti culture in a city where…