Paris: The Art - Le Louvre vs Street Art

 

Behold - I bring thee Gatorade

 

The Famous Lady with that smile

A couple of Space Invader originals we spotted in Montmatre.

With Augustus at Le Louvre

   

Plato, Artistotle, Socrates, Matt Andrews

The Goddess of Love with Aphrodite

 

These ones are for you Del! Many sphinx

A mummy (or daddy?)

Paris, a city of culture, is full of art. The Louvre is full of treasures - as cliched as it may sound, it was very cool to see the Mona Lisa in real life. Matt most enjoyed the ancient Roman and Greek halls, where we saw the actual busts and statues of various characters he learnt about studying Latin and Classics (Dad - Augustus was the 'ruthless' one from the essays of mine you read).

Walking the streets of Paris, we came across numerous examples of street or urban art. Much different to the territorial graffiti that plagues the streets back home, this is more about artists challenging the notion of art, by placing it in a non-art context. Some of these pieces are very clever, and some would say beautiful. For the skeptics, pieces by the artist known as 'Banksy' have sold for over £100,000 at auctions at Christie's and Sotheby's. Unfortunately we didn't see any Banksy in Paris, but did come across a couple of 'Invader' originals - pieces made up from small ceramic tiles to resemble 'Space Invader' characters (see the film "Exit through the Gift Shop"). Perhaps, in 100 years time, people will flock to the Louvre to see a Banksy behind the thick glass?