La Cala d’En Serra is a small cove situated in the north of the island of Ibiza. Uphill from it, the abandoned site of an unfinished hotel stand out. An idyllic spot of graffiti & urbex, I absolutely wanted to share with you the images of my exploration!

If you have never been to Ibiza, you should know that in addition to its summer nightclubs, it offers real natural and architectural treasures all year round. Two archaeological sites are listed by UNESCO, as well as the old town of Eivissa. And when it comes to street art, the BLOOP festival has been working for 10 years to promote it and organises the visit of unmissable artists to paint incredible murals all over the island.

But in my opinion its greatest attraction lies in the diversity and beauty of its Mediterranean landscapes. In fact, some protective measures have been taken by the public authorities to preserve biodiversity, which is in the grip of increasingly dense urbanisation. La Cala d’En Serra is located at the heart of a Natural Area of Special Interest (ANEI), which prohibits building there since 1991.

The current ruins are the legacy of a hotel complex project undertaken in the 1970s by Josep Lluís Sert, a renowned modernist architect. The building site was temporarily suspended due to his opposition to Franco’s dictatorship and then abandoned on his death in 1983. As a new urban planning project took shape in the 2000s, the financial crisis swept away the prospects for reconstruction. Many years later, the building site still remains in the state in which it was left.

To get to Cala d’En Serra, you have to go down a rocky road at the bottom of which you will discover turquoise waters and a wild panorama overlooked by the concrete remains. Some will find that this contrast spoils the natural spectacle of the cove. Personally, I find that it adds a bit of surrealism.

The building is completely accessible despite some poor barriers and it seems almost unbelievable given the decay and the danger that the place lets fear. Around the two buildings wild nature is omnipresent and at the end of the land you can access a wide concrete platform that overlooks the whole cove.

I climbed up the two or three floors, avoiding some wobbly stairs and falling into holes! The walls are fissured, the floor is cracked and all surfaces are tagged. In fact, there is so much graffiti and messages (some in French!) that I deduce that it is a space hyper frequented by graffiti artists and urbex adventurers!

Exploring it also allowed me to identify some street artists from Ibiza, such as Butron Delcastel, Rubiio.One, Inkrustart, FlowHer Power, and international artists like the Barcelonian BubleGum or the famous French Noar Noarnito and the English Morf.

I discovered that an artistic residency had been organised in 2018 by Ses Dotz Naus association. The first building was taken over by the Luxembourg artist duo Martine Feipel & Jean Bechameil. As part of a collective action, they invited inhabitants and volunteers to take possession of this abandoned site by painting one of the façades, mixing street-art and visual arts. The traces of their work are still visible under the recent tags, as ephemeral and fragile as these walls. Their performance highlighted the artistic and historical dimension of the place and the building, which was originally part of the modern architectural trend.

The residency was filmed to produce an audiovisual artwork, entitled Hotel Utopia. It can currently be seen at the Hab Gallery in Nantes (FR), as part of an exhibition of the artists, Automatic Revolution. Until November 1st, 2020. The production creates a lasting archive of this heritage.

The history of Spain is there, this ruin is a living testimony of its time and it also have its own story through the art that covers its walls.

This place raises a lot of questions for me and I don’t know what will become of it. But here we bring our little contribution to the building in its valorisation.

Bibliography:

U. C. du patrimoine mondial, « Ibiza, biodiversité et culture », UNESCO Centre du patrimoine mondial. https://whc.unesco.org/fr/list/417/

D. de Ibiza, « Las ANEI de las Pitiusas quedan inedificables como en el resto de Balears » https://www.diariodeibiza.es/pitiuses-balears/2016/01/09/acuerdo-govern-declarar-inedificables-anei/815966.html

« Es Amunts ». http://makingofibizamagazine.com/es-amunts/

diariodeibiza.es, « Estructuras abandonadas e inacabadas en Ibiza » https://www.diariodeibiza.es/multimedia/fotos/local/2019-11-03-172490-estructuras-abandonadas-inacabadas-ibiza.html

D. de Ibiza, « Cala d’en Serra: el arte entre las ruinas » https://www.diariodeibiza.es/pitiuses-balears/2020/01/19/cala-den-serra-arte-ruinas/1116801.html

L’association « ses12naus.org – ses12naus ». http://ses12naus.org/index.php/en/sesdotzenaus/

« Martine Feipel & Jean Bechameil, lauréats de la Bourse Francis-André 2019 », Culture.lu. https://culture.lu/fr/actualit%C3%A9s/martine-feipel-jean-bechameil-laureats-de-la-bourse-francis-andre-2019

« Martine Feipel et Jean Bechameil », Issuu. Disponible sur: https://issuu.com/revue303/docs/feipel_et_bechameil

« A visit to Josep Lluís Sert’s abandoned Hotel built in 1969 in Cala d’en Serra, Ibiza – purple TRAVEL », Purple, mars 09, 2017. https://purple.fr/diary/a-visit-to-josep-lluis-serts-abandoned-hotel-built-in-1969-in-cala-den-serra-ibiza/

« Celluloid Diaries: Urbex – Abandoned hotel on Ibiza », CELLULOID DIARIES. http://www.celluloiddiaries.com/2013/10/urbex-abandoned-hotel-on-ibiza.html

« The fascinating story of the Ibiza lost resort – The White Isle – Ibiza Blog ». https://www.thewhiteisle.co.uk/fascinating-story-ibiza-lost-resort/

« Ibiza Hors des Sentiers Battus | Voyage Authentique », www.partir.com. https://www.partir.com/Baleares/ibiza/coins-secrets.html

Ivan, « The sad story of the half-constructed abandoned resort at Cala d’en Serra – Ibiza », RANDOM Times •, avr. 30, 2020. https://random-times.com/2020/04/30/the-sad-story-of-the-half-constructed-abandoned-resort-at-cala-den-serra-ibiza/

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Rouen, the city of a hundred bell towers where I spent every summer of my childhood, is becoming an unavoidable street art destination in France. For the second edition of the festival “Rouen Impressionnée” I rediscovered this city and it impressed me!

Beyond its history and its vast cultural heritage that you should certainly not miss, I would like to present a non-exhaustive panorama of the urban art scene in Rouen through this festival, the local artist InkOj and the art centre, Hangar 107.

Just as it is happening in Rouen, more and more cities are adopting a cultural policy in favour of street art, which is seen as a local development lever. It is a new touristic phenomenon and many festivals are emerging in France. In short, street art contributes to embellishing the city and renewing its attractiveness. Indeed, it often participates in revalorising districts or territories that are marginalised compared to a centre, such as the 13th arrondissement in Paris, Vitry S/Seine or the Cabanyal in Valencia (ES).

The urban art festival ‘Rouen Impressionnée’, on the Left Bank

The urban planner Olivier Landes is the organiser of this large-scale event. Specialised in urban art, he is the founder of the association Art en Ville, within which he was also the curator of the In Situ festival in Aubervilliers.

For its second edition in 2020, ‘Rouen Impressionnée’ is taking over the Left Bank with about twenty artists programmed so you will need to cross the Seine from the city centre. At the time I was at the festival, 9 artists had already created their murals during the first part of the festival between June 23rd and July 17th.

I take this opportunity to tease you the second part of the festival which started on Monday 24th August. The artists will perform until September 25th. Among them I must mention Manolo Mesa and Elian Chali, who have been my personal highlights since I had the privilege of discovering their work in Valencia. However, a festival is above all an opportunity to make discoveries, sometimes moving ones! I present you in photographs a selection of 4 murals out of the 9 which were painted during the first part of the festival and which particularly captivated me.

In short, Rouen Impressionnée takes place from June 23rd to November 15th 2020. Two routes have been created in Saint-Sever and Grammont to allow you to easily find your way around the city without missing a drop of it!

Tip: the program is in two parts and depending on when you follow the routes, all the murals may not be completed (I got caught in this trap!).

Part 1 / part 2 / route maps

Free tours can be booked here and dates for September and October are available. All the infos are on the website but I’m breaking the back of the work for you!

The first edition of the festival was held in 2016 in three areas: the city centre, the quays and the Sapins district in the upper Rouen area. This geographical strategy is probably a result of the organisers’ desire to produce an event that is in the dynamic centre of the city, but also enhances the more distant neighbourhoods.

So I went to see some of the artworks from the previous edition! Here are a few pictures of them!

Some of them no longer exist, notably the Giant Squid of Brusk, whose support building was demolished in 2017. And I didn’t have the time to go to the Sapins district, but I hope to get an opportunity soon. 

InkOj murals in Saint Mark’s district

To fully understand the relationship between the city and street art, I went outside of the festival setting to immerse myself in the vandal scene. Close to the shopping streets, the Place Saint-Marc is a more peaceful part of the city centre. I immediately noticed there a piece by the artist InkOj whose work seemed to be particularly symbolic.

Since December 2019, he has been stenciling and spraying the entrances of buildings in Saint-Marc district. The motifs resemble those of Portuguese and Spanish azulejos. Beyond this style that I like very much, it is his territorial approach that deeply appeals to me. Indeed, the profusion of works in the district’s perimeter enhances the streets, pavements and the entrances to buildings. It is renewing the entire urban aesthetic. Moreover, the location of his murals no longer invites the passer-by to raise his eyes to what surrounds him, but rather to look beneath his feet! By the way, when you look at the streets to discover the street art that is hidden, you will often find little wonders by lowering your eyes

This project is a personal, spontaneous and vandalous initiative of the artist, which he finances himself and enjoys total freedom. Rouen’s town hall apparently adopts a posture of tolerance, as it is becoming more and more common in many French cities nowadays.

Urban art is truly a vehicle for cultural identity and social cohesion. It can act as an image or ambassador for a district. I have experienced this on several occasions through unexpected encounters (cf. my excursion to the Cabanyal). While photographing works of art, I was approached by the manager of the Café de l’Époque, 43 rue Armand Carrel. It’s beautiful to see that pride and enthusiasm mingle in these conversations in which urban art becomes a natural pretext to discuss the neighbourhood and its aura. It’s him who pointed out to me that the designs in InkOj’s works were a continuation of the tiles inside the buildings entrances which are closed most of the time. This is nonetheless visible in front of cafés where we can publicly enter during the day. 

I then invite you to cross Eau de Robec street, where you will be charmed by the city and its half-timbered houses. This street has also been transformed by the artist InkOj, following a group order from restaurants. 

The artworks of InkOj bring a hidden architectural heritage back into the open: the traditional concrete or ceramic tiles of Rouen’s interiors. From the private space, they now extend out onto the street, into the public space of the city thanks to his practice of contemporary and urban art!

Hangar 107 on the Docks

Hangar 107 is a must-see for urban art lovers. I think their program is excellent and I loved this summer’s group exhibition. It brought together all the artists who had been exhibited at the Hangar since its opening in 2018. Among them, I would mention a few of my favourites: Tania Mouraud, Tilt and Thomas Canto.

The next exhibition will showcase the work of Olivier Kosta-Théfaine and will be open from 24 September to 31 December 2020.

Hangar 107 is located on the docks, a more modern and industrial area in contrast with the architecture of the city centre. The art centre’s setting is luminous thanks to the bay windows that give a beautiful view of the right bank. I also invite you to cross the Flaubert Lift Bridge to stop under its huge concrete pillars and admire the Seine.

To conclude, here is a surprising work with a 3D effect by the artist Jaw created last June. It was commissioned by the Rouen Normandy Metropolis to enhance Vergetiers street. A short walk from the Gros Horloge, it is located in the heart of a very lively area. The aim was to give this pedestrian street with very little traffic a new look. This project reflects perfectly the appeal of street art in the strategies of urban planning.

© all pictures are by Invisible Walls.

Resources:

Rouen Impressionnée festival’s website

Instagram page  of Olivier Landes, curator of the festival

Rouen’s website

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Welcome in this second part about Bucharest! I now bring you with me for a stroll in the city, along the murals I discovered!

Street art in Bucharest offers a new economic and cultural attractiveness. There are more and more murals in the public space, but also in private spaces, which is a characteristic of the urban art scene of this city.

First things first: Bucharest part.1 : a city of many contrasts, it’s this way!

In April 2019 I was on a study trip to Bucharest with my Masters’ class. Welcomed by professors from the Ion Mincu University of Architecture and Urban Planning (UAUIM) in Bucharest, we attended lectures and guided tours of the city centre, and we also walked around on our own, like grown-ups

I have not walked all over the city in these few days, but I offer you a panorama of the artists that you can encounter the most and the muras that I found.

The tool that was most useful to me in my discoveries and to tell you about my trip in this article is the map Un-Hidden Bucharest which lists a hundred murals in Bucharest, and many more in the rest of the country! In fact, most of the murals mapped here were painted between 2016 and 2020. It shows the growth of this artistic practice in Bucharest in recent years.

1.  Street art to the rescue of cultural heritage

Our first stop in the city is the University of Architecture and Urban Planning in Bucharest where we attended a conference on the urbanisation of the city. At the end, I walked around the university building and discovered a large terrace on the first floor which houses several murals!

The largest and also the most impressive in my opinion is by Obie Platon, in collaboration with Alexandru Barat and Sandu-Milea Lucian. Painted in 2016, the artwork is entitled ‘The Architect’. It is a portrait of Ion Mincu (1852-1912), a major Romanian architect who gave his name to the UAUIM. Obie Platon chose to pay tribute to this man and his former university since he himself studied architecture there. The influence of his first profession can be found in his art among many other influences such as kinetic art, surrealism or pop culture. He began his street art practice with graffiti in the early 2000s and became known in the local street art scene under the pseudonym Allan Dalla. He has created several other monumental murals in Bucharest, and he also exhibits his work internationally.

Little tip: if you get a little closer, you’ll find the artist’s signature and a flash code linking directly to his website. Flash codes are quite common in street art to self-promote! Keep an eye on it and flash for interesting discoveries sometimes!

Still in the UAUIM courtyard, another large wall displays two murals. The upper one, also painted in 2016, is by Saddo, a Romanian illustrator and muralist. He studied graphic design at the University of Arts in Cluj-Napoca, his hometown. His first contact with the graffiti culture was during a trip to the United States. After the fall of communism, young people turned to western culture, travelled and discovered hip-hop, in which graffiti was originally a part. Back in Cluj, Saddo created with friends a street art collective “The Playground” and became a major artist on the Romanian art scene. He is also commissioned on various international projects.
In retrospect, the artist, probably a bit of a perfectionist, writes about this mural on his website:

“I feel like I have to be honest about this mural – it’s a pretty frustrating mural for me, I see it as a symbol of failure for me: the moment I painted it was a moment of personal failure in my life. Also, the original idea of the mural itself was initially that of a juxtapozition of natural, organic elements, and a white line drawing of a Corinthian capital. The whole idea was to illustrate the way architecture finds inspiration in nature. But at the moment I felt like adding that extra element might fuck up the whole thing, I was a bit worried, so I just left it like this, and now I feel like there’s something missing, and that I should’ve made that extra effort.”

The lower mural is by the Dutch illustrator Hedof. It was painted in 2017 as part of the Visual Playground illustration and graphic design festival.

We also find the invader’s artist Toy Box for the mural in progress, and the maze is anonymous.

During our pilgrimage in the city, I discovered another mural next to Cişmigiu’s park, painted during the festival Visual Playground by Akacorleone. Swiss Portuguese illustrator and graphic designer by training, he started by graffiti in his home town of Lisbon. He had an international street art career and he participated in the Tour 13 festival organised by the Itinerrance gallery in 2013 as well as in a group exhibition at the Mathgoth gallery in 2017 in the 13th arrondissement of Paris for instance.

C.A. Rosetti Street, a work of art by Pisica Pătrată. The funny characters are hiding in the alcoves of a building right next to the Artmark art auction house. Pisica Pătrată is one of the most appreciated and recognized Romanian street artists and illustrators. He is also the founder of the Comic Books Museum. His characters are always located on old buildings in Bucharest. His work in situ in in the city allows him to engage in a dialogue with forgotten historical buildings and to show this abandoned cultural heritage. For example, he has painted on the old buildings of the Cinema Marconi and of the Capitol Summer Theatre.

A second mural by Obie Platon at the corner of Stirbei Voda Street and Ion Campineanu Street for the Bram Stoker restaurant depicts the historical character of Vlad the Impaler, who inspired the novel character of Bran Stoker Dracula. A mythical and emblematic figure of the Romanian popular culture in Transylvania, which has become an important tourist attraction for the region.

Returning to the Lipscani district, on Victoriei Street, an artwork by Cristian Pass created in 2017 depicts an eagle.

2. Open air street art gallery

During our free afternoon at the end of the trip, I went to another district close to the metro station Piţa Romană to discover the Arthur Verona street which houses the Graffiti Walls gallery. No interior spaceor website  for this gallery but a lot of murals and graffiti covering the walls of this street. Several walls of this street at the corner with the Dionisie Lupu street are hosting murals that are changing every year during the festival of urban cultures Street Delivery. The murals I discovered were created during the 2018 edition of the festival which takes place every year in June.

The largest is a collective work by female artists on the theme of Girl Power: Wanda Hutira, Livi Po, Grafette (Sandy Balasoiu & Irina Mocanu), Ana Constantinescu, Irina Giuglea, Laura Ionescu, Ira Merzlichin, Mihaela Semeniuc & Andreea Pe Câmpii.

The year before, in 2017, Obie Platon and the NOM Crew  had painted this wall for a mural entitled “Don Quixote and the windmills” on the question of the effects of technology on our contemporary society.

The opposite wall is covered by another Romanian artist and illustrator from the local art scene, Kseleqoqynqyshy. He paints almost childlike worlds full of poetry. His murals are mini towns in the town, populated by colourful animals. On his instagram, he explained this very particular universe:

“Inside each building there is another world. And in that world there are infinit buildings that each one have other universes inside. And on each planet there is another world with infinit buildings and characters. So basically there are infinit universes.”

Then comes another large and quite impressive mural of Kraser. The Spanish muralist artist has chosen here to represent a brown bear, an animal very present in the mountains of Romania.

The rest of the street is covered with tags, graffiti and collages. And there are artworks by AEUL and Ortaku again!

While going to the square Piaţa Romană, I discovered a last mural also made during the festival Street Delivery in gable of building which overhangs the bookshop Carturesi Liberia, boulevard Magheru. Its author, the artist Pisică Pătrată mentioned above, paints at the same location every year a new artwork on the theme of books, in reference to its location above the bookstore.

To finish this stroll on a mystery – because yes, when one is passionate about this art, one is in a constant state of investigation and observation (by the way, don’t hesitate to read our article “How we find the artists of the works we meet in the street”)-, here is a pair of eyes that observe the city from above. Located on a building on the Independenţei river quay Dâmboviţa,I didn’t find any mention of this artwork online.
If you know more about it, leave us a little comment!

That’s it for this little city walk through the murals encountered in Bucharest. I hope that it has made you travel and that it makes you want to discover this city when we can all go again on an adventure in faraway lands!

© all the pictures are by InvisibleWalls.

Some links to help you plan your stay:

• [EN] Street art guided tours by Bucharest Alternative Tour 
• [EN] Urban Collectors: gallery and librairy dedicated to street art
• [EN] The website:  Feeder.ro to know more about the project Un-hidden Bucharest

And for further reading, check out the bibliography at the end of Bucharest part.1!

L’article <p class="has-medium-font-size">Bucharest part 2: city tour along the murals est apparu en premier sur Invisible Walls.

Bucharest, the capital of Romania, is a city of many contrasts. Its architecture and urbanisation are the primary evidences of this. It’s striking the moment you lay your eyes on the city and wander between the different districts. Crumbling 19th-century buildings, massive Soviet-era buildings that have crushed the city centre, such as the actual Parliament building (largest palace built in the former USSR) and very modern buildings are clashing with one another within a few streets.

At a time when we can’t travel, I offer you a virtual trip to this city which fascinated me, with its so particular charm and by its close relationship with street art which brings a new breath.

In this first article I draw a panorama of the historical and urban context that led to the arrival of graffiti and street art in the city, and I present some of the invader artists I found throughout my journey. A second article follows in which we will discover the numerous murals of the city. You will find the link at the bottom of this article .

One year ago, in April 2019, I was in Bucharest on a study trip with my Masters’ class. As students in history, cultural heritage and architecture, we went to explore a European capital! We spent five days in the Romanian capital, between lectures at the Ion Mincu University of Urban Planning and Architecture in Bucharest (UAUIM), visits of the city centre with one of the professors of the University of Bucharest, and free time (what would any school trip be without this?)! 

Called “Little Paris” in the 19th century, Bucharest was modernised from 1859 onwards and many French architectural influenced buildings were built. Then under the communist regime (1945-1989), the government confiscated private property such as the houses of the inhabitants of Bucharest, to demolish them or use them as administrative buildings. Today, young people are mobilising to preserve their city and its old houses from the “Belle Époque” and which, after the fall of the communist government, have not necessarily been returned to their original owners and have been left abandoned. They are restoring them and creating new community and urban culture spaces.
A study carried out by UAUIM in 2016, for example, identified 400 unused locations in the city and analysed potential rehabilitation of these buildings.

These houses are not squats since their new occupants have legal agreements with the owners who offer them at low cost in exchange for their preservation. Young people make their projects economically viable by opening galleries, cafes, bars or shops inside the restored houses. And these spaces bring together communities who evolve around common artistic practices, like graffiti. This brings a whole a new economic and cultural attractiveness to neighbourhoods and to the city in itself.

These artistic interventions create new opportunities and transform the city. In Romania’s harsh economic context, street art is a cultural alternative accessible to all. 

  1. The graffiti vandal scene

The first thing that struck me in Bucharest, when I arrived in the historic district of Lipscani (see map), was the amount of tags and graffiti that adorned the bottom of the most dilapidated buildings in the city, regardless of the importance or function of the building. For example, the University of Bucharest is covered with inscriptions all over the base of the building. The location of these pieces of graffiti is quite interesting: they are only at eye level on the ground floor of the buildings or at the very top, accessible through the roofs.

The post-Soviet urban context of Bucharest generated many contrasts and this public space became a favourable ground for graffiti. Firstly, because many buildings are abandoned and there are also ruins of Soviet buildings that were never completed. 

Also, some of these crumbling buildings are very fragile and are marked by the authorities with a red dot. It indicates the risk of collapse in the event of an earthquake, as there is a high seismic risk in Romania, particularly in Bucharest.

And secondly, Romanian youth, who were bullied and deprived of freedom of expression under the communist regime, were finally able to express themselves after the fall of communism in 1989 and turned to Western culture. The hip-hop movement, with its tag and graffiti, arrived in Romania in the early 1990s and young people seized this means of expression that was visible to all. Trains and abandoned buildings in the city became a privileged creative surface for young Romanian graffiti artists. The system of government repression against graffiti artists was and still is very weak and this fight is not a priority. Romanians do not feel a sense of civil responsibility towards their city. They do not perceive it as their own and are not encouraged to participate in urban planning decisions. Public space is perceived by most Bucharest citizens according to the article by Miruna Tîrcă as “ugly and polluted, populated by thieves, corruption and danger” while the private space of the home is considered a “safe place”. And they are excluded from the collective decisions on city planning by local governments. 

The first pieces of graffiti that appeared in the 1990s were political. Many of them probably still are but unfortunately I do not speak Romanian and I have not found any recent articles on this phenomenon since the Social Democratic Party came to power in December 2016. The Romanian government is plagued by corruption and the SDP “has constantly amended laws and codes, even threatening the constitutional state, diminishing the rights of the opposition and the powers of the President” according to an article in Libération. The hopes of the Romanian people and the future prospects of the youth have been dashed in a few years by this new policy.

Ms. Negulescu, a professor at UAUIM, told us that half of the university’s students have left in the last two or three years to pursue their studies abroad.
The SDP has since been overthrown in October 2019 by a motion of censure.

An example of vandal graffiti can be found on the Memorial of Rebirth, on Revolution Square. Inaugurated in 2005, it is dedicated to the “Glory of the Heroes of the 1989 Revolution”, the revolution that led to the overthrow of the communist dictator Nicolae Ceausescu and his wife, and their execution. The monument, though eagerly awaited by Romanians, is controversial for its design. Its author, Alexandru Ghilduş, is a designer, not a sculptor, and critics point to the work’s lack of symbolism. According to them, it does not adequately represent the importance of the event, the suffering of the people and the victims there have been. Mr. Turcanu, a professor at the University of Bucharest, explained that the monument is hated by the people, who call it “potato skewered on a stake”.
The monument is tagged and vandalised at the bottom with a lot of graffiti, and a dash of red paint was thrown on the “potato” in 2012 so high that it has never been erased.

  2. The invader artists

AEUL is one of those omnipresent artists on the walls of the city. He paint his character “the piggy-dog“, in many different situations. He has become the symbol of the graffiti community in Bucharest, present throughout the entire urban fabric from the historic centre to the suburbs. He paints his piggies in “crowded, dirty and consumerist” spaces.

I don’t think anyone’s counted them, I lost track around 500. Some disappear, some show up…

AEUL

Concerning the technique of stencil and collage, two Romanian artists are very present on the walls of Bucharest : Toy Box and Ortaku.

I also spotted a small work in bas-relief on Victoriei Street by J.Ace a street artist from East London who carves his small faces and glues them all over the world. He has been to Bucharest several times, one time for an artistic intervention at the Capitol Cinema / Summer Theatre, an abandoned historical building that has become a hot spot for street art in the city. J.Ace pays homage to the places where he pasted up his works by sculpting portraits of people who used to live in it.

I have found very little information available online about graffiti in Bucharest but I hope I have managed to remain faithful to its history and its current urban context. My bibliography is at the bottom of the article if you want to go deeper into the subject, and if you have any more information, don’t hesitate to share it with us and leave a comment below .

If like me, you want to go far, far from home and take off right now for Bucharest, I’ll bring you along on a little urban stroll in a second article Bucharest part.2: Urban stroll amongst its murals!

Bibliography :

• [EN] “Street art & Salvation: Getting to know Bucharest through its street art, Wandertooth blog
• [EN] “Art journeys into romanian public spaces, Feeder.ro
• [EN] “Alternative Bucharest. Reactivating vacant spaces in the former Communist capital” by Monica Ciovica
• [EN] “Visual urban cultures of contemporary Bucharest – Between imagination and social realities” by Miruna Tîrcă
• [EN] “Street art in Romania”, Rolandia blog
• [EN] “Memorial of Rebirth, Wikipedia.
• [EN] AEUL interview by Cristina Popa on Feeder.ro
• [EN] “The Mysteries of Bucharest with Street Artist J.Ace / An expected incognito visit at CAPITOL ” on Feeder.ro

• [FR] “Bucharest, the young culture is born in the old warehouses”, Cafe Babel
• [FR] “Romania loses its heads” by Irene Costelian in Libération
• [FR] Presentation file of Romania, site of the French government.
• [FR] “Le Monument de la Révolution de 1989 à Bucarest”, Romania.com
• [FR] “In Bucharest, Ceausescu’s crazy palace”, L’Express
• [FR] “The best of street art in Bucharest”, blog Family Barcelona

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