Today Ladies and Gentleman and everyone in between, Allow me to take you on a tour of a Post Apocalyptic Cathedral of Aerosol. An Art gallery of the rarest sort. Free for all to see and hidden in the obscure Badlands of southwestern France, Let me be your guide on this trip.
Please join me while we go-
Walking in A -
Graffiti Wonderland.
Welcome to the Exhibition. Please feel free to make yourselves comfortable
If a picture is worth a thousand words, This post is about 60,000 words long so I hope you brought a drink.
I Did a post about the actual building yesterday The CM 10 Military complex.
If your interested in that check it out here-
@rubido/the-cm10-or-this-sht-just-got-real
But relegating the art in this place to a footnote seemed like a crime. There are literally Miles of Works on these walls.
Some Good, Some Great, All of them Inspiring. Especially in context.
Works of art, Masterpieces in Krylon and Rustoleum.
They're everywhere, on the outside over Cement rendered walls.
On just about every kind of surface and texture imaginable.
On the inside...
On small dividing walls and in every corner.
In most of the buildings, Each hangar is divided into what for this purpose I'm going to call Canvases. Just over 12 feet wide (For my metric buddies 3 Meters) and between Pillars usually.
Nearly all of them have been filled over the last 20 Years.
Surfs up dude. No for once I'm not talking much.
Too many pictures, too little time.
But Yeah Babey,
The future is now
This is one of my favorites, A Leaky roof and a depiction of the building its in.
Yeah, In this old mix of ramshackle buildings that no one really goes to, All this work. Representing thousands of hours and an equal number of cans of Spray paint.
Its a shame there going to demolish these kinds of places soon. This one has a demolition order on it now. Apparently they need a new shopping center in town or something.
Guess its time to face the music.
The eyes have it.
But I'm sure its for our own benefit...
Proof of Brain wuz here?
See look at poor Daisy.. Abandoned in the corner.
But hope springs eternal.
You can always get more spray paint.
And tomorrow the birds will still sing.
Art everywhere, One mans trash is another mans treasure.
There's a mix of Freestyle, Stencil and even a few modern art installations. All done by different crews at different times.
All strategically placed
under the skylights
and against the windows.
It makes for a display, that I for one have never seen anything like.
Pop culture Icons
And Arcane symbolism
Political messages
With miles upon miles of glorious tags.
Full wall murals and collaborations everywhere the eye can see.
So to all the artists who worked these walls over the years I owe you a big thank you.
RAID-ENEKO-AGIL-MOTIF-LUBY-SABR-GEAN-VYEW-HEAKS-DELIRZ-SEMA-HIKN-GR12.SL-SWD-CREED-i01-TCHADY-WAYER-INAK-KAISE-AZEK-BROSH-FISH-KOWN-POSH-EMIR2-TOTEM-BLOWN-ALPACMAN-HEUR-FACT-SKIM-XEROT-ANTISTAK-POAR-DOOM-SKAZOO-MX-SDEO-ASHES-ATEMI-EL MOOT MOOT-SOTIZ-NOACH-SAGEM...
If I missed any of you It wasn't on purpose!
In a word, Fuckin Awesome.
But I appear to have hit the photo limit. No more will load so I guess that's that. According to the locals That last photo was one of the first bits of graffiti here. So I figured its a good way to close. The photos. At the beginning.
I have found out that some of these dudes and their crews have gone on to be fairly well known.
Travelling all over the world to do installations and murals, Tv Shows etc.
Thanks for joining me on this gallery tour. I think I could have easily stretched this into weeks of content But I wanted to share a portion of the impact when you see this much bad ass graffiti in one place.
The only comparison I can draw to the atmosphere here is when I accidently snuck into an Edvard Munch Exhibition when it had closed and was being prepared to be moved.
Seriously they shut it the day before and protected the entrance with a velvet rope...
Like that ever stopped anyone.
No lights in the room, Just each painting lit by a tiny portrait light. Me on my own just looking.
Eventually security found me, and escorted me gently outside. Honestly, I was only looking.
So to sum it up, It was awe inspiring.
All Photos taken by me on My Chinesium Phone A Xiamoi Mi 11 lite, And the missus Lent me hers when I ran outta battery.
17 down and ticking away.
I decided I'm going to have a bit of fun on this 30 posts in 30 days. I'm going to do a post 31, and a giveaway on the 31st post, cause some months have 31 days or so I've been told.
In spite of my rough and ready appearance I'm an Antique dealer I know I already said it.
So it'll probably be old shit in your mailbox.
Stay tuned and engage down below . For every post from day 1 if you comment on it you will get one entry and a chance to win.
Then at the end of the 30 posts, on day 31 There will be a random raffle you will get a chance to win....
Really cool old shit.