After attending the Rock En Seine festival , I spent a few days in Paris and wanted to bring you some recommendations for alternative culture in the City of Lights.
Photographer Richard Blia
French photographer Richard Blythe creates iconic portraits of musical culture. Serge Gainsbourg, Paul McCartney, James Brown, Iggy Pop, Marilyn Manson, members of Nirvana, and many other music legends have stood in front of his camera lens.
Richard began his career as a true rock star – in a metal pipe casting factory. Metallurgy, an engineering branch that produces metal, was a major industry in his hometown, the town of Longueuil, which borders Luxembourg. With the wages he earned working in the factory during his summer vacation, he bought his first camera. The first photos he took with it were of Robert Smith and the Cure performing in Luxembourg in 1980. The initial bond between the photographer and the musician grew into a professional collaboration and personal friendship that continues to this day. Fans may not pay attention to the credits, but many of the Cure’s most famous photographs belong to Bella, such as a single series of photographs of Robert Smith and his wife Mary Paul that was published in the media.
My acquaintance with Blia began last year in London, at an exhibition of his Cure photographs that was held around the band's performances at Meltdown Festival and Hyde Park. This year Blia accompanied the Cure on their festival tour in Europe and Japan.
Blia's Cure exhibition in Paris lasted all summer; the official presentation took place the day before the Rock En Seine festival.
The exhibition location, similar to London and Tokyo, was a gallery in the boutique of fashion designer Agnes B. Agnes studied design at the Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts near the Louvre , and absorbed fashion influences from second-hand shops and cross-dressing culture. Early in her career, she converted women's clothing into men's clothing. The designer usually dedicates space in her brand stores to modern art exhibitions. The branch at 3 rue de jour that hosted the exhibition is located behind the impressive 17th-century Gothic church of Saint-Eustache.
The photographs were hung on the gallery walls and were available for purchase as prints in various sizes. The exhibition provided an opportunity to view the historical record and hear from Richard, a performer in his own right, full of heartbreaking stories. Richard also presented his book “Eye on Music,” a retrospective of his illustrious career. It is a thick volume, weighing 5 kilos, containing about 800 pages and more than a thousand photographs. Robert Smith received a copy as a gift when he appeared in Florence. Richard took the opportunity and conducted a short and wonderful photo session of Robert and the book. The result can be seen in the photo I purchased at the exhibition.
Richard Blia's Cure photography portfolio is featured on his Facebook page.
Supersonic Club
After the festival, I continued my acquaintance with the city's music scene. That's how I ended up at the Supersonic club in the Bastille area (9 rue Biscornet). It's a neighborhood club that hosts musical events and performances almost every day. All the performances I attended were free. The bands, mostly local and just starting out, attract a large audience. This contributes to creating a community around the club. The Parisian female trio Grandma's Ashes particularly impressed me. The band stood out thanks to their powerful, heavy sound and charismatic stage presence. It seemed like the band members had created a play in which each had a unique role. My friend Or noted that together they reminded me of the three "strange sisters" from Macbeth. I couldn't think of a more apt comparison.
Night graffiti tour at Tokyo Palace.
The Palais de Tokyo Museum of Modern Art is located in the 16th arrondissement . The museum is open until midnight. Twice a day, in the morning and at 10 pm, the museum organizes a graffiti wall tour in the basement, where the museum offices are also located. This area is not open to the public, except during the guided tour. The entrance fee to the museum, 12 euros, also covers the tour. The tour is usually conducted in French, but that evening there was only one visitor there besides me, and with his consent the guide gave us a tour in English. It seems to me that all the objects and exhibitions in the museum are united by a common concept: the art of the big city. The materials of the works are trash and urban objects, the general themes – sex, violence and trash again.
The museum does not receive any government subsidies and is supported, among other things, by renting the building, for example, for fashion shows. Renowned designer Rick Evans holds all of his shows there. The Yoyo music club operates in the basement of the museum. It is an old cinema complex that has been converted into a hip-hop party and performance club.
On the wall opposite the entrance to the club are posters from 2012, inviting people to an exhibition of the best graffiti artists, which was supposedly to be held at the museum. That year, the posters were put up all over the city, and on the day they were given, the museum was flooded with people. But like many graffiti artists, the event was fictitious. The museum did not put up the poster, but a private individual, as a joke.
The museum's underground corridors are covered in crazy graffiti, with even crazier stories behind them. The tour provided a glimpse into the fascinating, mysterious and sometimes criminal world of graffiti art, and provided an introduction to the prominent artists.
Philippe Baudelocque
Philippe Baudelocque is one of the few graffiti artists who is not wanted for vandalism, so he works under his real name. Philippe draws in chalk and always carries a suitcase full of chalk, so that he is available to work at any time. Philippe built his name as a famous industrial designer, so the graffiti community does not consider him one of “them”.
Azyle
The French graffiti artist who operated under the pseudonym Azyle (“Asylum”) was wanted for 13 years by the Ministry of Transport and Metro Services. He managed to evade arrest for so long because he worked in a metro uniform, updating himself every time the uniform changed. When he was finally caught, it turned out that he was a normal person – a family man and a senior civil servant. His identity is known to the police but not revealed to the media. The court sentenced him to pay a large fine for cleaning services, but he managed to appeal the amount of the fine by filming himself cleaning the graffiti he had done. This served as proof that the time required for cleaning was short, and that the amount of the fine was excessive. The artist stopped working as “Azyle”, but may have resumed as another alter ego.
Vhils
The Belgian artist, who does not paint but burns and punctures walls, using a hammer and miniature TNT charges that are connected by wires and activated in a planned manner. The painting on the wall is not always visible to the viewer in its perfect form, and is revealed as such only in photography.
Cleon Peterson
Renowned American artist Cleon Peterson has created graffiti along a hallway depicting scenes of violence. The painting was created on a black wall using a stencil, which marked areas that were covered in white. Stylistically, his paintings are reminiscent of decorations on ancient Greek ceramics. Peterson exhibits his “walls of violence” around the world. In creating them, he collaborates with another provocative artist, Shepard Fairey, who is responsible, among other things, for Obama’s “Hope” poster.
At the end of the tour, the guide said that the future of the graffiti cellar depends on the will of the new French president, whether to keep it or destroy it. She added that women graffiti artists are excluded from the exhibition. She said that when the curator of the exhibition was asked why, his answer was that “women don’t do noteworthy graffiti.” She said she hopes that the incoming president will not only preserve the graffiti but also change the agenda.
A few words about the author
Nili Hankin is a journalist, writes about culture in newspapers and magazines, in Hebrew and Russian, and also lectures on music. She is currently working on her first radio special on the subject of the underground Soviet rock scene, which will be broadcast on Radio “Essence of Life.”
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