Читать книгу Street Knowledge - King ADZ - Страница 22

C215 grew up in the small city of Orléans in France, a very quiet place where he began creating his street art as a teenager.

‘It was a balanced life I could not face, since I am a very unbalanced person who needs action. This city was too small. Paris is now too small. I sometimes feel this world is too small.’

His art has developed into some of the most amazing stencils around and can be seen in many cities around the world: Delhi, Sao Paulo, Istanbul, Brooklyn, LA, Dakar, Casablanca, London, Amsterdam, Rome, Barcelona, Athens, Warsaw, Berlin. ‘I think my art is painting stencils in the streets. I could do other things, but what I am good at is stencilling the streets. I’m used to painting anywhere I am and I am travelling quite a lot. I try to place paintings in the streets, but almost without asking for any authorization. Trying to place the right stuff, at the right place, at the right moment.’

What does street culture mean to you?

‘A lot of things, and not only hip hop culture. As a Frenchman, we think to the firemen dancing parties of the 20s, the Parisian terraces, the political posters, having fun between kids in parks, putting tags by night in the streets, being rebuked from night clubs, smoking a cigarette outside a club, smoking a joint in a small street. But more seriously I also think to homeless people, street kids and beggars, since those experience streets continually, with its violence, its indifference. These suffer from streets and cannot be avoided.’

What/who are your influences?

‘Ernest Pignon-Ernest, the original pioneer of French street art, is certainly at the basis of most of my works. But older classics are big references for me: Dürer, Rubens, Delacroix, Ingres, Géricault, Courbet and many others, I am even influenced by French poets like Baudelaire, Apollinaire and Rimbaud.’