For as long as there has been urban culture, street art has been a potent form of expression that piques the interest of onlookers. But what if street art were to unite traditional art with modern culture?
Artist and filmmaker Julien de Casabianca dabbled in graffiti in 1982, like many suburban teens, but he didn't really get into it until 2015, when he was inspired to try something new. He came up with the concept of bringing famous paintings from museums' permanent collections outside to the public. Instead of repainting famous works of art, de Casabianca prefers to "paste" them together. He uses contemporary methods like photographing, printing, and pasting to pay homage to the originals.
The "Outings Project" idea came to him after he saw a collage on the sidewalk, although it wasn't motivated by any particular inspiration. He told Sixth-Nature, "I was one day in front of a collage in the street, somebody pasted a poster from a classical picture, I mean, he bought the poster in the museum and put it like that, without modification, and that had no power. I spent only enough time on it to figure out why it wasn't working. I lingered in the sidewalk in front of the billboard and noticed a clash between the modern street design and the classical painting style. There was no need for two decorations in this setting. It became evident that we needed to downsize the character from antiquity and place them in the present day. The buck stops with me. After I got going, it was quite monumental.
The artist choose low-income neighborhoods on design to contrast with the wealthy communities from which the museum's classical characters emerge. He hopes that by doing this, visitors would be reminded that they have a personal relationship to the museum's collection. "Bystanders to the museum don't realize they frequently serve as its owners! It usually occurs in front of a large audience. And the painting inside is theirs! "All I'm doing is returning to us what they rightfully own," he exclaims.
The artist's interest, moreover, goes beyond the confines of the gallery space. He incorporates the surrounding streets, other buildings, the sky, and the ground into a new landscape that he designs, bringing together aspects both ancient and modern. In the gallery below, you can see some of his incredible creations.
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