Posts Tagged ‘Art Squats Paris’

Underground Spaces & Art. Beneath the City of Paris.

Friday, December 28th, 2012

Underground Spaces & Art. Beneath the City of Paris. Throughout the world underground complexes criss cross beneath the surface of the above-ground world. There is a thriving underground world where the average person never gets to see…unless that person knows where to look. Fascinating subterranean cities and hidden underground spaces that dwell beneath our feet.

 

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For instance, beneath the city of Paris below the Metro tunnels under the railway, stations, is another thriving world where people work 24hr’s maintaining the entire transport system to keep it working at its peak. There’s the famous underground cemetery the Catacombs”les carrières de Paris” full of caverns and tunnels. The walls are laden with an interesting installations of skulls and bones.

 

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Wherever I go, I like to explore hidden underground spaces. In Paris I found a very special space under an apartment. Down there, I create stories, art and listen to the silence & chatter of the walls. I like to set up little dioramas between the red doors, damp earth walls and the ground. I then photograph and make little video’s of the scenes for later projects.

UX, for “Urban Experiment.”

Saturday, July 21st, 2012

I just love this story …inspires me to keep working on my art projects which link back to my own treks of working in underground spaces below Paris over the past 5 years.

Thirty years ago, in the dead of night, a group of six Parisian teenagers pulled off what would prove to be a fateful theft. They met up at a small café near the Eiffel Tower to review their plans—again—before heading out into the dark. Read full story by Jon Lackman …

 

 

 

 

 

Amour de Paris

Saturday, May 5th, 2012

I miss Paris today. I miss the homeliness of Paris …I woke up feeling a longing for the white snow on the rooftops outside my little studio window in the cubicle.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I miss my dark dungeon, with its odour of oldness and mold and even miss the creepy feeling that lashes me when I go there to work on my never- ending arts project.

 

I miss the fresh no- nonsense food, the culture, the artists and especially, the realness of Paris.

I miss not knowing the language and guessing what people are saying.

I miss seeing something new and the ordinary down the streets of Asnieres with my daughter.

I miss the walk to the park with its topiary trees, gardens and boulie men.

I miss the newness of the place plus the old familiar places I like to go to.

I miss not being able to play and sit in the gardens around the corner where Vincent sat and created.

 

I miss the little art/design ateliers down in Bastille with their windows full of  high design handmade, one- off  pieces of jewellery, glassware, sculpture, furniture and funky home-wares.

I miss knowing that every time I stroll through the Louvre I still, haven’t seen it all and will need to come back.

 

 

I miss not being able to visit Camille , Manet Doré, Degas, Cézanne, Rodin, Monet , Picasso, Renoir, Rousseau ,Gauguin, Lautrec,Valadon, Bernard,Matisse, Rouault,Brâncuş’, DufyPicabia, Braque, Metzinger , Delaunay, Arp , Chagall, Duchamp, Ernst ,Soutin,e and Masson for the day.

I especially miss the closeness to Modernism, Impressionism, Post-Impressionism, Fauvism, Symbolism , Art Nouveau, Primitivism (art) Modernism, Cubism, Puteaux Group, and my favourite ,Dada, and Surrealism The art squats, street art and local artists with avant guard ideas. I miss my most loved Pompedou gallery.

I miss the trips to Dave’s parents. I even miss,the rattly old one person lift we squeeze into,going up to the apartment. I miss their welcome and sitting at the table eating delectable foods with the now, familiar Eiffel, out the window .

 

I miss Champs. Montmartre, cemeteries , beautiful old buildings and new places I haven’t seen before.

 

 

I also miss the things I haven’t done, or seen yet, in Paris.

I miss the smells ,textures and sounds when living,in Paris. Even, the nightmare trains I don’t mind anymore.

I miss the nostalgia of Paris. There are triggers in Paris, that send me back to my childhood in Australia. It’s usually only something small that will set this feeling off, like the simplicity of design in the everyday domestic object, or the rawness and feel of a well made cotton dishcloth or tea-towel.The aroma and taste of fresh foods straight from the farms and markets.

I especially get this nostalgia when Dave and Amy come home from the patisserie across the road with the morning baguette or my favorite Frasier cake. All this will send me back to my childhood  in Australia when everything was more authentic, honest and more, homely than it is today.

Paris is just like a comfortable old jumper to me now. I do miss Paris today and my wonderful daughter…

My French- inspired handmade shop Atelierinparis

 

Art Squats. Hybrid Arts. Studio in a box Paris.

Sunday, October 2nd, 2011

I believe art can no longer be only confined within the walls of established art institutions and be thought as only painting or sculpture. At a time when we are at the peak of global creativity I see artists refusing to be labelled and contained. Art venues and spaces are struggling to keep up and are experimenting with new ways to present this explosion of creative output artists for multidisciplinary and multidimensional.

When I was in Paris last time, I saw evidence of this. In a city of almost 300,000 living artists Paris seems to find creative outlets for multidisciplinary and multidimensional. Little “Hybrid art” spaces are popping up everywhere in the streets. Artists themselves have had to think of innovative ways to get their art seen. Many making their home an art space open to the public.

Art squats, sandwiched between homes in residential areas, art has taken over abandoned buildings where a rich cultural life of concerts, debates, exhibitions, lectures and workshops unravels in clandestine venues.

When I’m in Paris I have a couple of creative spaces I made out of necessity. “Studioinabox” and “The Dungeon”

 

 

“Studioinabox” is a wooden trunk in the apartment living room where all my creative materials are stored. I create the work on top of the box or the floor space. I  may even display or exhibit in side the box. As I move from country to country, my “nomad art’ has to be small and transportable. I enjoy the challenge creating in the immediate space and using only items, I collect from the streets,used packaging and a few other bought art supplies that I can fit into my “Studioinabox’

 

‘The Dungeon” is a space underneath an apartment block in Paris. It’s damp, smelly and creepy with dark corridors, full of earth walls with red wooden doors. The lights are on a timer and go out every minute, so you can be stuck in a very unearthly dark abyss, if you don’t press one of the buttons on the wall quick enough. I have devised a way to stop them turning off and over the years, I have become more brave and allow myself to connect to the dark hole, for longer periods. Eventually I want to open the space and show my video and photography down there. I also have ideas of a performance in the space.

In Australia, I find there are too many artists and not enough art spaces as well. So, I’m playing around with a few ideas using my home and website, as my art space for all sorts of creative experiments. Nothing, is fully formulated or resolved yet, and will keep you all informed of my progress from this blog.

Do you have a special space where you create and show your work?