Little Black Book of Art

Up until 22 November 2009, the Fondation Cartier in Paris (created in 1984 par Alain-Dominique Perrin), is showing an exhibition entitled: ‘Né dans la rue – Graffiti’ which translates as ‘Graffiti – Born from the street’.

It is quite unusual for such a high brow institution to showcase this kind of art, seeing as the French don’t seem to have much regard for an art form which seems to plague their streets, defacing the city’s beautiful classical architecture.
However, since the rise in interest in ‘street art’ in Britain and the elevated prices works by such artists are attaining at auction, a new admiration of this art form has begun, and this appreciation has clearly spread across the pond.

At the Fondation Cartier, the entire gallery space as well as the building’s façade and surrounding garden brings together the extraordinary development of an artistic movement that was born in the streets of New York in the early 1970s to rapidly become a worldwide phenomenon.