Poetry

For the fifth time, a poetry weekend, “Festival O+O”, (= Au plus haut de Paris) was organised at Butte aux Cailles.

I have already posted about this little area of Paris, e.g. here, here and here, but maybe I should just remind you that we are on a modest hill-top, with a partly preserved feeling of a little village, which it once was - outside Paris until 1860. Close to the now covered, extinct, brook called Bièvre, it used to be a place where tannery and fabric industries were present. It’s also linked to social struggles, the Commune… It should be remembered that it was on its central square, Place Verlaine, that the first human flight landed and that’s also where you find one of the three spring water wells remaining in Paris (see here, here and here). Today, Butte aux Cailles is also a place for street art and a number of nice, simple, restaurants and bars. Few tourists take this direction, but many – young – Parisians do, especially during the evening hours.  

Last weekend you could meet some surprising “tents” walking around the streets. They “hid” a number of poets, who had chosen this way to present some of their poems, welcoming guests to visit their “tents”. The action was called "poetical shower".

There were many other ways to present poetry - on the streets, in the gardens, in shops, on walls…

On the main street, Rue de la Butte aux Cailles, there is a kind of library, which actually is a place for different social activities, “Les Amis de la Bienvenue”. Of course they offered poetry readings … and books.

At the Place de la Commune with its Wallace Fountain (see here), there were other activities ongoing, including help to write some poetry postcards to your friends, some Indian dancing...  

Much more happened, but you can’t be everywhere. I also wished to walk around, feel the atmosphere…

… check if there was any new street art.

In the evening some theatre performances by poets, stand-up artists… were offered.

On the way home, I could enjoy the special atmosphere of this little area…

… and get it confirmed that it’s a quite popular place among the younger population. 

Villa Daviel ... and urban art again

I already posted about the “Butte aux Cailles”, but returned there with Virginia the other day and thought I could make a small additional post.

There are several quiet corners here and you still get a nice authentic feeling – including from the bars and the restaurants; so far rather few tourists around!












One little street which I did not cover in my previous posts is called “Villa Daviel”. (A “villa” would in Paris correspond to a small street, with individual houses.)
The street is very calm and the cats can walk around without any major risk.In my previous posts about the “Butte aux Cailles” I showed several examples of “urban art”. Together with the streets around Rue Mouffetard, like Rue Arbalète on which I posted the other day, the “Buttes aux Cailles” is also an area where artist activities are much promoted, more particularly by an association called the “Lezarts de Bièvre” (see their site) which e.g. organises visits to artist studios (including the coming weekend).

One of the houses on Villa Daviel is occupied by artists. The front gate is decorated by the overall present Jeff Aérosol and they had also posted information about the coming weekend events. Each year an “urban artist” (graffiti artist) is also in honour. Previous years such artists have been the ones appearing on my recent Rue Arbalète post like MissTic, Mesnager, Némo, Mosko, Speedy Graphito, Jef Aérosol, FKDL, Artiste Ouvrier... This year they have chosen “Jana und JS” and you can see some of their works here.

La Butte aux Cailles (3) - Graffiti

I have already showed the above picture, but I thought it illustrates rather well what I wished to talk about today – graffiti – at La Butte aux Cailles.

You can of course find a lot of graffiti if you walk around Paris, as in most other cities. The graffiti art started to appear more generally in the 80’s in Paris, to start with in a clandestine way. Later in the 80’s it became a bit too much for people in general and for the local authorities, with taggers producing everywhere, and the city took later severe measures to clean – free of charge for the house owners

Some graffiti art is however today tolerated and even appreciated – and is allowed to remain. Some of the graffiti artists have become stars and their works are sold at high prices. We can see a number of examples of their art at La Butte aux Cailles.

What I show you here has actually to its greatest part been sponsored by the city of Paris - as I understand in cooperation with an artists’ association called “Lézarts de la Bièvre” which invites graffiti artists to paint on selected and “allowed” walls.

This is e.g. the case for “Miss.Tic”. She is nowadays working for Louis Vuitton, Kenzo…and has had numerous shows and sales in different galleries and even decorated large walls in Paris. Another example is “Jef Aerosol” with a similar and international career.Frank Duval (“FKDL”) is another one and you can see his ball playing lady on the wall behind the ball playing young girls on my top photo.I could possibly also refer to some previously made posts on graffiti and tagging.

I will now make a break for a few days, probably until Monday. I have the pleasure to meet several bloggers who will be around and I will not have much time to spend with my PC - maybe with the camera. See you again soonest possible!

La Butte aux Cailles (2)

My last real post on my previous blog was about La Butte aux Cailles.

I don’t have very much more to tell about the place; I just want to give you an idea of what you can find. If you stroll around for a while, you will find a number of small idyllic streets, a lot of individual houses or villas with small gardens in front or behind. As an example, if from the central Place Paul-Verlaine you walk down the street “Moulin des Prés” and enter a small side street at no. 72 (Square des Peupliers), you will find several samples of what I have tried to illustrate with the top picture. You can prolong the promenade around the whole area and find a lot of surprises. Even the eating, drinking and shopping part seems still rather genuine. You can find a number of restaurants offering decent meals for between 10 and 13 €, not so easy in Paris any more. This used rather to be what you would call a working class area and it has still a bit of authentic atmosphere, but it’s obvious that this is on its way to change.

You can find some of the photos on my (new) photo-blog.

New site

After a year, I thought it was time to change and create a new blog. As from tomorrow, my posts will be here.

I have changed the format allowing some larger photos. As a starting point I show you the same photo as on my last post on my "PHO" blog.