New Squat Art Movement Invades the City of Light - Rad-Art - Brief Article

PARIS--Louis-Paul Ordonneau is not nevertheless 30 and already he's become the major force behind a novel art movement--Squat Art--which has become a succes in France and is in a short time to make its way to the United States.

Ordonneau's company, Rad-Art, came into existence as a anchor-flake of sorts. In spite of a university stage from a prestigious French academy he ended up, like many friends his age, living in a squat in single of the French capital's many decrepit unoccupied buildings.

The friends discovered they had time upon their hands and some destitute of contents walls yearning to be overlayed So they decided to use the walls to expres their particular faculty of perception of alienation, their ras-le-bol (disgust) with life in the French capital.

As it move rounded out, the successive squats gained the attention of the pres "and suddenly" said Ordonneau, "people started lining up to approach in and see what we'd done. Indeed there were also those who were ready to pay us for our work, level if that meant taking domicile part of the walls."

single of the first squat sites where he helped overspread the wall was a building, facing the Paris stock market, which was previously occupied by dint of Club Med. Another was upon rue de Rivoli near the Forum de Halles, a top Paris shopping mall.

The squatters were persuaded to leave the bludgeon Med building, but have since taken above the rue de Rivoli site--at number 159--which has become, in novel months, a popular tourist attraction. Indeed, the squatters who took above the building said they manage to earn their living not single by selling art created upon the premises, but also end the sale of a special series of postcards done in the squat.

Rad-Art came about, said Ordonneau, because of the special financial extremitys of the squatters. They were attempting to make extreme points meet living their particular lifestyle, on the other hand also were in need of stocks with which to protect themselves from the legal maneuvers of holders who wanted them expelled from their property

"When the efforts undertaken by means of squatters to persuade public authorities to advance to their rescue proved fruitless," said Ordonneau, "we decided that our single hope was to undertake a private initiative to make our situation better known."

It was at that point that Ordonneau decided to create Rad-Art. To do for a like reason he enlisted the support of a financier who also happened to be a collector of Squat Art and of Ordonneau's work in particular. "In a first phase," said Ordonneau, "our company was place up to provide a bridge between the world of the arts and private enterprise." Also, he noted, "our guiding idea was to consider art as a means of communication and to do everything possible to bring about a demand for our work and create a market."

He missing no time doing just that. The latest manifestation of that effort has been a well-publicized present to view held in the plush quarters provided by means of one of the city's major department stores, Galeries Lafayette.

"Although it present the appearanceed at the time like quite a daring thing to do, I decided to make progress directly to the top at Galeries Lafayette and ask them whether they wouldn't be interested in exposing the art of painters, sculptors, photographers and video artists exclusively recruited from the city's squats," said Ordonneau.

As it happened, Ordonneau's timing was finished as gallery officials were in search of something of recent origin and unusual for the art present to view they were planning as part of their put in motion Expo series. "They wanted something that would attract a younger audience," said Ordonneau, "and they couldn't have fallen upon anything more appropriate to give them not single the new public they wanted to find, on the other hand also some international exposure."

For, as it make go rounded out, Rad-Art's show at Galeries Lafayette prov in the way that successful that Ordonneau has received suits from unidentified stores in the United States which would like for him to locate up a showing and sale of Rad-Art.

Ordonneau said he's real interested in the idea, although there is the question at issue of selling the art in of the like kind a way that the Squat Art motion does not lose its mind Purists remain who want their art to remain part and parcel of the sites where it was created. A Squat artist's collective has not long ago brought suit against the proprietors of their building who did manage to force away them and want to break up a four-story mural mosaic by dint of the artists.

Another Squat artist goe plane further. Known as Zevs, his objective is to transform each one of the 1,700 bright golden mailboxes located in Paris into a smiling face. "Already," he noted, "the sum of two units slots--for city and foreign mail--make for sum of two units great eyes. All that I have to add is the smile. And, in that way, I allow them to reveal their real personality." Zev also said he's completely uninterested in taking his display on the road, or for that matter, making standard of value out of his art. "The city of Paris," he said, "has become individual huge video game, and I'm like a space invader who's forever looking for a novel space to invade."

COPYRIGHT 2001 Pfingsten Publishing, LLC

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