Day 48: Paris Street Art (Part 2)

Next we visited a spot which was the highlight of the tour for me. It was this beat up old squat with a big gate in front that was chained up and covered in graffiti. As our guide was telling us how it's always locked up, but a squat that's home to artists and musicians that do street art and put on impromptu punk rock concerts, a girl a nearby doorway that had been watching us came over to talk to us. She told us that a developer had bought the property and all the squatters were getting evicted in the next week, and how we were witnessing the end of a major cultural establishment in Paris. She offered to unlock the gate and let us have a look around.

The walls were covered with some of the best art of the entire tour, and just getting a glimpse into the lifestyle of some of the artists was interesting. Of course most street artists are broke people squatting together, but despite the lack of money and the obviously run-down nature of the place you could really feel that it was a great incubator for creativity and the sharing of art. I took a lot more pictures of the art in here, including a rather funny painting of a giant My Little Pony with herpes, that I'll eventually get on Picasa.

The final spot I have pictures of was an empty lot that was another big mix of art.

That's another massive ZOO Project piece at the top, but just to give an idea of some of the detail put into the other bits, here's a close-up of one section:

That's it for the tour. Only one city left to complete the Big 3 of Europe! Tomorrow I'm planning for a day of a few more museums/galleries and some shopping (or at least browsing), then doing starting to do some trips out of the city early next week.