Eye on Design | Paris | Sign of the Times
Graffiti artists are pioneering new ways of expressing art all over the world. Clet Abraham, French graffiti artist, has become well-known for the black adhesive silhouettes he adds to street signs, like this guy furtively carrying away the no-entry bar. His figures can be seen on signs all over France, Italy, England, and Spain, and he is one of many artists to make a name for himself through his work on the streets.
A Paris street artist, known only as Giaco, uses sidewalk drainage grates as the ribs for his skeletons.
Jef Aerosol started his career with graffiti stencils in Paris in 1982. His art is now in many private collections around the world as well as on the walls of cities including Paris, London, Lisbon and Chicago, New York and Bejing. This wall in Paris is near the Centre Georges Pompidou.
I photographed this track of tanks and bulldozers chasing each other, painted on the side of a building in Prague…I found out later that the artist, Blu, named his mural “Gaza Strip.” He became famous in 1999 for a series of illicit graffiti painted in Bologna, Italy. Since then, his work has been seen on walls and in galleries all over the world, as far-reaching as Nicaragua and Bethlehem. He is also a prolific videographer…if you’re interested, you can see his animation on You Tube.
London graffiti artist, Banksy, is famous both for his incredible stencil graffiti art, and for being so mysteriously anonymous. No one knows what he looks like. I was in London when this new piece appeared. When I saw it a few days after it was sighted, someone had already put a sheet of plexiglass over it to protect it.
His work has been sold for up to $1 million.
It’s graffiti, and it’s that valuable.
The streets of the world have become an art gallery…revolutionary, innovative, and constantly changing.
Take notice.
“Graffiti artists have in common a taste for the mysteries of the night and of surprise; a healthy attitude for liberty of expression and breaking of rules…but these are the bases of being an artist!
Clet Abraham (born, 1966) French graffiti artist