Spotlight on graffiti and its influences at the Palais de Tokyo

The Palais de Tokyo, which opened its doors to street art ten years ago, offers from Thursday in Paris an unprecedented reinterpretation of graffiti, in its interaction with contemporary art.

Giant apple cores and sculptures inspired by wasteland rubble rub shoulders with large-format paintings, strange costumes, videos, installations, drawings and writing panels created by some sixty international artists, from the 60s to 'until today.

Entitled "La bite des termites", in reference to a work by the Italian writer Italo Calvino on cities, the exhibition takes place in a wooden decor architecturally reproducing the "S" dear to American graffiti artists of the origins.

It traces the aesthetic, cultural and political journey of graffiti artists, from historical figures like Zlotykamien in France or Chaz Bojorquez, founding father of Latin American gang culture in the 60s, to Parisian Antwan Horfée or the young collective of feminist graffiti artists Douceur Extrême. , passing by Rammellzee, icon of American graffiti of the 80s and muse of Basquiat.

"It highlights meetings of artists in a gray area", where graffiti and contemporary art mutually influence each other without it being possible to set formal limits between the two. "Their vocabularies and their obsessions meet on a common subject: their relationship to the street and to the public space", explains to AFP Hugo Vitrani, curator.

A large part is given to women: the photographer Martha Cooper is for example exhibited with Valie Export, performer of the Viennese scene of the 70s.

The visitor also discovers the story of the first work of the Frenchwoman Sophie Calle, tagged on the eve of being exhibited in the United States and preserved as it is, or Tania Mouraud, pioneer of urban art in France.

A series of magazines, books and rare documents also retrace the history of urban art between continents, countries and eras.