Jef Aérosol Exhibition for his 40th anniversary in the Magoth Gallery, in Paris.

On Wednesday 19th and Thursday 20th, we took the metro to go to Magoth Gallery, in Paris, to see an exhibition which celebrated the 40th anniversary of Jef Aérosol’s work.
The exhibition was located just in front of the François Mitterrand Library on 600 m2 of concrete. But do you know who Jef Aérosol is ? He is one of the greatest street artists in the world who made the famous self-portrait "The man who ...shhhh" that we can see in Igor Stravinsky square, in the 4th district (next to the Stravinsky square). The exhibition was divided into two parts : in the first time, the artist (his work and his career) and in a second time, the exhibition of 300 original works of workshops in a huge warehouse. Then, in the afternoon, we went to Paris City Hall which unveiled its latest compelling and free exhibition called "Capitale (s) : 60 ans d’art". Once there, we discovered an exceptional display of 70 artists’ pieces of art, from Banksy to Miss Tic, including Invader, Swoon and Seth.
Finally, we ended our day with a visit at Next Street Gallery (23 Place des Vosges) which hosted the solo exhibition of young artist, Seny, "All Kids are Heroes". 
These exhibitions were related to what we were studying in class and to our project to make our own street art exhibition in the school. 

Let’s begin with Jef Aérosol’s gigantic exhibition :

As we entered the gallery, we were welcomed by the owner, Mrs Jourdain and we saw a huge painting representing the iconic self-portrait of the artist on a wall and next to it a cardboard showing a little boy and a little girl arm in arm.

Then the guide asked us to put our bag in a corner of the room as she explained that we will visit different spaces with valuable pieces of art and that we will have to be very cautious. Before getting into these spaces, we went by a long board covered with information on the artist.

We discovered several drafts, traces of research, stencils of different artworks that Jeff Aerosol has done as well as posters of his different exhibitions. We noticed that these were arranged in chronological order, which allows us to trace his life as an artist and his evolution. For example, the red arrow that is now the artist’s signature was not present in his first works.

This exhibition board showed us the different stages in the creation of a work of art, notably thanks to research boards. We saw that the artist uses many different techniques. This board also showed the dates of creation of Jeff’s tags and the different periods of his life. (by Eva and Venicia in 3ème B)

In this exhibition, the artist’s artworks were dispersed in four different little rooms and each was devoted to a specific theme of Jef’s works.
The first room was named "the self-portrait room" :

As its name indicates, there were diverse self-portraits of Jef Aerosol, for example, this little frame of 26 x 26 cm.

The characters seem to fall and are a bit scary, they are all done with the same stencil (+ the arrow), each is unique.

The second space is the children’s room :

Jef Aerosol is famous for 2 artworks, "Chuuuuttt !!!" and "The Sitting Kid"

But except for the Sitting Kid, the artist painted many other children of all origins. And many of these artworks have a blue background as you can see in the photos below :

others have a different backround but children are at the heart of his art :

The third is "the music room" :

Music has an important part in Jef’s life as he is not just a street artist, he is also a musician. Thus, he represents his passion for music through his artworks. As you can see in the photos below, Jef paints not only in canvas, but he also uses cardboard in his creations.

The last room is "the street room" :

Jef also represents the street in many of his artworks, take a look at these photos to see how precise and elaborate his art is :

(by Sheryne and Julien in 3ème B)

After the visit of Jef Aérosol’s exhibition in the museum, we went to an unexpected place, a huge warehouse full of original artworks made by the artist. There were over 300 pieces of atrwork everywhere with seemingly no connection to each other. There weren’t many colors, most of his works were in black and white with colorful details. We also saw animated artworks with water, lights and music. We felt like we were in the streets of New York with the noise of honks and police sirens.
We noticed Jef Aérosol’s trademark, his red arrow, which he put everywhere like a signature. He also set road signs, traffic lights, some tires and barrels as if we were in the streets. This exhibition seemed very realistic to us, in part because of the accessories related to his artworks with life-size painted people who were playing music on a real bench, but also because of real paint bombs, newspapers scattered all around the place, a telephone box with lights... All this to immerse ourselves into the street and be part of this urban jungle.

(by Chimène and Kalyna in 3ème E)

In the afternoon, we went to Paris city hall to admire a special and compelling exhibition which traces the history of street art in the capital and highlights the work of many artists, some famous and others emerging.

We saw the many techniques that exist in street art like graffiti, engraving or mosaic. There were also original installations which left us speechless. Once you walked down the stairs, several large halls take you to an urban and creative universe.
The place was very colorful, there were works of art on all the walls, at every corner of the city hall.There were huge frescoes from the most colorful characters to the most unusual creatures.

One of the artwork was a traffic light. Unexepectedly, it was working !The pedestrian sign on the side of the traffic light was working too as all the lights were on.The traffic light was very big and life-size, and it looked brand new.The weird thing about it is that it had a red light at the back. Either it was built like this or the artist added it, but either way it was really cool.

During the exhibition, we learnt the materials and techniques that can be used to produce these artworks and also the messages conveyed by the street artists in particular on major societal issues.

Through this exhibition which really left us enthralled, we realised that Paris played a major part in the emergence of this movement too often reduced to its North-American origins.

(by Naomie and Rehu in 3ème E)

At 11:30 am, we went to the 4th district of Paris and had lunch in front of the contemporary centre of modern art, the Centre Pompidou, next to the Stravinsky fountain and the old church of Saint-Merri. Behind the fountain,we could see Jef Aerosol’s iconic huge piece of spray painted artwork, "Shhh !". According to the artist, the message of the mural is “Stop, look and appreciate the city.” Just next to it, we also contemplated Shepard Fairey’s work of art "Knowledge+ Action= Power".

After that, we headed to Next Street Gallery which was located at 23 Place des Vosges where we saw a solo exhibition by young artist, Senny Meftah. The exhibition was named « All kids are heroes » and we saw portraits of children from all over the world.

We were with the owner of the gallery, Mr Simon, who explained us that street artist Seny started to paint at 14 years old and was inspired by rap culture, fashion and the cinema in Vitry-sur-Seine, in the suburb of Paris. The young artist, who is now 18, has been making his works from stencils, mixing spraypaint, acrylic, and Posca. He likes to experiment and risk new combinations of materials and supports. Most of Seny’s work of art have simililarities like the use of brown coming from the oxidation of metal in his paintings.
Among the artist’s works of art we saw « Lewis », a black child who looks calm wearing a boxe helmet « Everlast »

In that stenciled graffiti we can see a bit of nonchalance and confidence, we assume that the child is in introspection.

Other pieces of art that drew our attention were these ones :

We can see the frequent use of different shades of brown and some bright colors, but the most striking fact is the gaze of his muses which is both captivating and moving. They are all young children but they look so strong.

We hope you enjoyed this virtual visit like we did and maybe you changed your viewpoint on street art.

(by David and Rehu in 3ème E)