Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
A bill in 1936 provided for 'the creation of monumental decorations in public buildings' by
allotting 1% of building costs to art. The concept mushroomed half a century later (with
Daniel Buren) and now there's artwork everywhere: in the Jardin des Tuileries, La
Défense, Parc de la Villette, the metro…
Contemporary Art
Artists in the 1990s turned to the minutiae of daily urban life to express social and political
angst, using new mediums to let rip. Conceptual artist Daniel Buren (b 1938) reduced his
painting to a signature series of vertical 8.7cm-wide stripes that he applies to every surface
imaginable - white-marble columns in the courtyard of Paris' Palais Royal included.
Partner-in-crime Michel Parmentier (1938-2000) insisted on monochrome painting - blue in
1966, grey in 1967 and red in 1968.
Paris-born conceptual artist Sophie Calle (b 1953) brazenly exposes her private life in
public with eye-catching installations such as 107 women reading and commenting on an
email she received from her French lover, dumping her. The resultant work of art - compel-
ling and addictive - was published in the artist's book
Take Care of Yourself.
Street art is the current buzz word. In 2013 the world's largest collective street-art exhibi-
tion, La Tour Paris 13 (
www.tourparis13.fr
), opened in a derelict apartment block in the 13e
arrondissement
. Its 36 apartments on 13 floors were covered from head to toe with works
by 100 international artists. The blockbuster exhibition ran for just one month - lines to get
in were hours long - after which the tower was shut and, in April 2014, demolished. Itself
an artwork, the three-day demolition was filmed and streamed live on the internet (where
the street artworks remain). Galerie Itinerrance (
http://itinerrance.fr
)
, an art gallery in the
13e specialising in graffitti art, organised the mind-blowingly successful project.
