We have a storage room South of Paris. Boxes full of books and a few objects gathered here and there. We go check once a year. I always look up this spot on the way. New art every year. The fence is closed most times, not that time, last September… I sneaked in. (As my SenSei Resa taught me)
Detail, left. There was an artist at work on his ladder. I’ll leave the interpretation of the two paintings on the right up to you.
Detail, right. The centre panel shows three women wearing a “bonnet phrygien”, symbol of the Revolution and the French Republic. Arabic, black, Asian. An interesting attempt at diversity. Or integration?
Then I went back on the street, to walk the few blocks to the storage room, when Lo and Behold, as I crossed the street, I found “Spot 13”, a maze of street art under exits and entrances to urban highways. Look closely:
Columns and columns of art under the highway. Not a soul around… Which migh not be too safe in a “peri-urban” environment…
Under the highway exit. Excellent work.
“La Papesse”, the Pope-ess. Every column painted. A-maze-ing.
“La Diablesse”, the Devil-ess. The large mural we saw above is in the background.
“Rescue”. (Don’t bite me!)
“Mending the waves.” Same artist? What do you think?
“The giraffe and the witch.”
“Mona Lisa was black.”
“Witch in the sunset.” Same artist as the other “witch”? (You know I totally make up most of those titles, right?)
So much art, but I was in a hurry. Place didn’t feel too safe. (Nothing happened, but there were a few people living under those “bridges”.)
“Mujeres del mundo”, women of the world… An air of Frida, “mayhap”? African masks in the background.
“The Joker comes to Narnya”.
“To. Encompass. All. All. Must. Fade” (Very Tao-ish)
The legend above centre reads: “KIWI 2022. The guardians of light or L’élan vital”. Élan is sooo difficult to translate into English… Something that comes within and pushes outwards… Or an inner force…
Thank you for exploring the underworld of Paris. Nobody got mugged. The guy sitting above the mural on the left didn’t come down.
Equinoxio 
Just so you know, in English, the word elan is used 😉
Quelle découverte merveilleuse. J’ai trouvé un genre de gallerie d’art comme celui-ci sous le Métropolitain à Montréal. Mais il y avait aussi des places de stationnement. Vraiment cool de le découvrir.
These are gorgeous. Definitel Frieda. I think same artist for the Rescue and crochet…
Vraiment. super.
Yeah, I know about “élan”, still I was looking for something else… LOL.
Sous le Métro? Génial.
L’endroit “craignait” un peu, mais le résultat valait la peine.
🙏🏻💕
Sometimes only the French word will do.
Sous l’autoroute Métropolitain, non le métro.
Ouais, j’imagine. Et oui, quelle superbe découverte.
Vu. “sous le métro” me paraissait impliquer aller jusqu’au centre de la terre. LOL. Tandis que sous une autoroute c’est parfait. PLein de piliers et de plans verticaux pour peindre facile… 👍🏻
😉
Haha! Au niveau du métro est une autre pair de manches! Là j’ai le goût d’aller le retrouver…
Superb murals. And time-consuming to create, too. Serious artists painted them.
Yes, yes. Serious artists indeed. That’s why I love street art. You’ll never find such art in a gallery. (Not until the artists are wizened and old…) 😉
Thanks for sharing these bright murals. Glad to see the new, diverse revolution. Saw our poet laureate speak last week. She’s wonderful. Report in today’s post.
There is great art hidden under bridges and highways… 😉
I get your posts all together on Monday, but I’ll hop over there right now…
Great pieces of art there! Thought I saw Louis Armstrong laughing.
Mona Lisa definitely was black and rapped like a bi… ahem, remember that M$ video I linked to recently. 😀
It is indeed Narnia, or at least its king Atlan (the lion). The guy in last picture didn’t climb down because he was too high and… a dummy. Literally. 😆
By the way, we use the very same word for élan here – just without the accent – so I totally get its meaning. 😉
Thank you for the art show. Be well. 🙂
Most welcome Dragos. You must be right about Armstrong, somewhere in the backgound. I couldn’t take all, the place was a bit creepy.
You saw the dummy. 😉
Nice to know about “elan”. Like I said elsewhere I was looking for another more “English” word. It may come. Or not.
U 2
Very edgy street art!
Edgy as nervous, anxious? (Often the case in French Street art, except for MIss Tic) or “cutting-edge”?
Edgy as urban and gritty.
That it was… Definitely.
That indeed is astonishing good work. Giving that the feeling of unsafety is probably acurate, the artists must be from that neighbourhood. In the mending the waves picture it seems like the waves spill out on the ground. Frida, most centainly, and in the bottom picture I spot Katsushika Hokusai’s Big wave of Kanagawa. The guy sitting above it presumably wasn’t alarmed. 🙂 Au revoir Brian.
The feeling of unsafety is due to the environment. Lots of empty construction sites, possibly dealer sites, homeless… general neighbourhood.
Don’t know where the artists are from. They wouldn’t be a threat.
And yes, that’s the big wave, or at least I think it is too.
I only spotted the “guy” (walking dead dummy) until after I looked at the pictures in detail.
Au revoir Peter.
A different side to Paris!
Very different. Matter of fact, not many places in Paris have street art. City Hall frowns. La BUtte-aux-cailles is another site. Different style.
¡¡so so so marvelous!! I would have no fear, and I’m glad you felt safe long enough to get us this many photos. So spectacular 😍 gracias gracias
Hi Crystal. Glad you liked it. I just couldn’t walk away could i? The feeling was just a feeling. IN any big city there are places which don’t feel right. Either too crowded (dealers, homeless, etc…) or deserted… Like there. Though there were a few makeshift tents/cabins at the end. Didn’t get too close to there.
De nada.
Amazing murals! I really liked the art work under the highway. Very interesting post and inspirational too.
I’ve thought of painting a mural here in my local town however; I’m just not sure who I’d have to get permission from.
It was fantastic art. SO varied as you could see, Loved it.
A mural now? great idea. I’d suggest two ways:
1) City hall if it’s a “public” property.
2) The owner of the house. Resa in Toronto, does street art hunting almost every day I think. She sometimes shows garage doors with great art. The owner most certainly gave permission.
Thanks. I’ll have to find out where my local hall is.
If you find any lion’s or leopard street art please post it.
Lion or leopard? Hmmm. Don’t have much lion that I recall. A bit of Jaguar (close enough?) maybe. Let me look in my archives.
Yes, a Jaguar would be nice. When you have the time. Thanks and have a good weekend.
exquisit
Thank you… Those are great artists under those bridges/exits/entrances/urban highway…
Wonderful art works, thanks for sharing these. Not everyone is or seeks to be, famous.
Exactly. One of the many reasons I love street art. No lust for fame or money… Quite unique lately isn’t it?
It sure is, a hopeful antidote to the usual.
And we do need many antidotes lately… 😉
I can see it wouldn’t feel like the safest of areas, but there are lot of excellent pieces here. I think ‘the giraffe and the witch’ is my favourite!
Yes, great art. Worth the “unease”.
And I agree with you: that painting is very rich… Though the Papesse or Diablesse did reach me too.
What a fantastic open air gallery! One painting more beautiful than the other!
By the way, in German we also use the word “elan”. It seems that it is not translatable. 🙂
(The Danes also use “elan”, just checked, I didn’t expect that.)
Yes, an open air gallery. I hadn’t thought about that.
So “élan” is “universal”? 😉 Well, I’m glad of this major contribution of the French language… 🤣
Au revoir Brigitte
Au revoir og bonne nuit!
😴
I’m sure I’m not getting the meaning of any of the art (if there is any hidden meaning), but I really, really like all of it. That’s like walking through a modern art gallery of the highest quality.
Good point, David. There probably isn’t any meaning. Actually I don’t think Art necessarily has any meaning. The Ancient Greeks separated Beauty (Art?), Truth (meaning?), and Good. Obviously the three are connected, but that’s another issue.
The meaning of the She-Devil, only the author(ess?) knows, but the art is good.
As I walked around, I did feel I was inside a quality modern art gallery…
Very well put. Thank you.
All well with you?
Yes, thanks for asking. Things are fine, managing to get through the double whammy of a 13 year and 17 year emergence of cicadas in the St. Louis, MO area.
I plan to do a post on that in the not too distant future, even though I like to stick to my chronological time line (date photos taken starting with oldest). I found out I needed to do this to avoid double posting and to avoid having to keep track of what I posted and when.
Are there that many cicadas?
(Keeping track is complicated. I do folders with the material for one post. When it’s posted I file the folder in the “Posted” folder. Not very original but it’s worked so far.
Yes, there are that many. I forget the exact number (I’ll have it for my post), but for the city limits of St. Louis think billions, not millions.
Billions. Must make a lot of noise then? Which is fine I guess. It’s a natural noise.
Yes, it gets very noisy. Unpleasant, but not enough to drive one mad, at least not that I have heard of. Noise seems to peak from about 3:00 pm to 5:00 pm. For me, the noise sounds just like my frequent tinnitus, but magnitudes louder. Sometimes in the early evening I think I hear them loud and clear when washing dishes in the kitchen, but when I go out, I realize it was just my tinnitus. 🙂
Tinnitus? Had to look it up. Acouphène. My brother has it. I hear it can be bothering.
Hi Brian, I’m really grateful you didn’t get mugged. Please take care. The art is fantastic, I can see why it intrigued you. I met some French people traveling from Oslo to Amsterdam and on to Paris. They were lovely.i always find nice people to talk to on planes and in airports.
The risk was minimal. It was just an eerie feeling, and experience. large open spaces like that with nobody around can invite thugs… Better safe than sorry and watch your back… LOL.
You seem to be like me, I too often find nice people to talk to on planes and airports…
I think we look friendly. I always smile at people and that opens doors. 💝
I’m sure you do… 💕🤗
Wow! What a treasure trove you happened upon! So, you’re in France for the summer? Lucky you. Thanks for mentioning the figure seated between the gurters in the last photo. I don’t know if I would have spotted it otherwise. Creepy. I can see why you’d feel a bit nervous hanging out down there.
I took your challenge and tried to figure out the significance of the right-side mural in one of the first photos, labeled Thierry Lainé. You may already know this but Lainé appears to be a talented street artist. Here’s a link to his Instagram feed: https://www.instagram.com/laine_thierry_/
No, that was last September. I’m staying away from Paris this year. I have a very strong personal issue about all the movement restrictions linked to the Olympic games.
That “figure” was actually a “mannequin”, a dummy. Didn’t see it until i worked on the picture. LOL.
I’ll look up Lainé in your link. (I must confess I only know a few of those artists…)
Bon week-end.
Thanks for the link. He seems to be quite versatile. I have seen some of his work before, around les Halles, but I didn’t have a name to put on the art. Merci.
FANTASTIC!
This is a great collection of art. It all looks very new.
So..SenSei Resa … love it! Now I feel like breaking into rail yard….or somewhere.
Love those repeating walls and underpasses.
I have a bunch of posts lined up, but will sneak this in as a reblog at some point. Hey, reblogs don’t have to happen the next day. Better to wait a bit, anyway!
Peace! Resa xo
Yes, my dear SenSei, they looked new. Particularly the first series on the wide wall. The others were probably rather new too. No overtag.
Look forward to it. I’ll be honoured. And you’re right. No rush.
Peace
Back.
Just heard about a big scare in a Toronto-Paris flight. No relations or friends on board I hope?
Yes, plane caught fire. No relations on board.
Flying is not what it used to be.
I miss the big seats, real tablewear and often a great meal.
Now, pack your sandwich and hop aboard the air bus!
I’m into rail travel now.
xx
Agreed, flying has become horrendous.
As for train, depends on the network… Canada is a good network, the US too I understand.
Cheers.
Cheers!
Amazing collection of street art. I love the art you find on an underpass or pilon. Often hunting for street art, I find that these areas are the best for street art.
Underpass was the word I was looking for. Thanks. Yes, they’re good sites. The artists have a ready surface to paint on, nobody around to call the cops. Perfect.
Indeed and happy I could help… 😉
In Australia, artists have taken to paiting soaring inused silos (if they’re not demolished). Typically, the scenes relate to an area and quite lovely. I’m yet to visit one of these sites.
It’s a good idea. Give life to something unused…
Such a beautiful story through images
Thank you. Much obliged.