Sunday 24 July 2016

Rose Beton

Dans les derniers temps la maire de Toulouse s'a engagé à promouvoir le Street Art dans notre ville. Le dernier automne des murs du centre-ville ont été embellis par des artistes bien connus. Le projet continue à avancer, et cet été nous pouvons bénéficier du festival Rose Beton

Le projet a eu la très bonne idée de prendre le street art à l'intérieur du musée (Abattoirs), ce qu'est une bonne facon de lui donner la reconnaissance qu'il a manque pendant longtemps. Mais bien sûr que le lieu pour le street art c'est la rue, et donc le rose beton a pris les murs de Toulouse aussi.

I've leveraged one Sunday afternoon to visit most of the street works of the festival, "Les murs dans la Ville" (I have a few of them missing yet). While some of them were not too appealing to me, there are 2 that just delighted me.

The wall done in Empalot by HENDRIK BEIKIRCH is just amazing. The painting is beautiful, powerful and massive, but the choice of place is even more astonishing. The contrast between the work of art and the horrible building on which it lives (that's one of the ugliest buildings I have ever seen in a first world country) is shocking. Empalot is a "second degree" quartier sensible. It means that it's not the best place in town to live, but it's not a warzone were the police is stoned from the windows and attacked by mobs of criminals (like Le Mirail or some suburbs of Marseille) or where the Islamists reign and spread terror (some Parisian suburbs). Indeed, the neighbourhood has a certain charm (I was about to move to a flat in a nearby zone, so I rather checked the area to make sure it was still an area "controlled by La Republique"). I would say it's more like a multicultural place than a communitarist hell. Years ago many of the buildings got their facades revamped and part of the area looks a lot like the suburbs of Easter European cities. Now the city council is carrying out a redevelopment project to tear down some of the worst buildings and build new ones, trying to leverage the excellent location (next to the river and its exensive green area, 10 minutes far from centre-ville by metro) to entine new population to the area. The building where this work lives is one of those that will be torn down (a similar one has already been demolished) so unfortunately this piece of street art won't last for too long.

The other work that I've found pretty beautiful is one located rather close (1 metro stop), in St Agne. It's the result of a collaboration between French artists Monde and Maye.

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