Birdy kids' parisian invasion

First time I noticed Birdy Kids in February this year. Funny bird packed in the square, made by three young artists, who founded Birdy Kids in 2010. They say about their street art, that is funny, colorful and for everybody. 

After 4 months I came back to the same place in Paris and what I've seen: they are still there, they occupy this place constantly. 

 This summer they decided to be omnipresent in Paris.

Moreover, there's been some evolution within the characters, because besides of Birdy Kids, we have now Snaky Kids also... Apparently...

Super Birdy?

Murals

It's hard to find in Paris one big wall, which could be entirely covered with street art murals and/or which one could cover with those, before having the problems with police... For that the "le M.U.R." was invented. MUR, translating from French, means WALL, but in fact it's a shortcut of: Association le Modulable, Urbain, Reactif. This way there are two nice concepts in one, because back to the meaning of shortcut (mur = wall), everything here is about one big wall, located between the streets Oberkampf and St Maur in Paris.

M.U.R. (founded in 2003 by artist Jean Faucheur and many others) is giving the street artists, urban artists ect., regular opportunity of pasting up/painting/performing their own works on this surface of 3m x 8m. It was intention to create a link between the district and art. Street art.

Le M.U.R. - Tania Mouraud

This time, the day I was taking the photos, there was presented the work of Parisian artist Tania Mouraud. More about her and her work we can read on website/wikipedia/twitter. 

Le M.U.R. - Tania Mouraud

Then I was strolling a bit more around, and I found this family of wolves and one man, who screams: "Aime ton voisin", which means "Like your neighbor" (you should like your neighbor). I guess somebody made fun of it soon after and added those funny bodies to each and every head, so it's not scary anymore. There's kind of artist's sign, but still I don't know the name.

Just across the street a two-walls-mural was made by different artists. The variation of different creatures and styles makes it hard to focus on any of it, but for sure there's a long story, both literally and figuratively, behind it. Anyway, in general, I find it nice to look at. 

Next mural was made by French artist Lucile Saurel. A combination of people, animal, movement, instruments etc. presents quite interesting picture. As she explains on her website: birds, people, flowers, they all form a landscape - elusive and always in motion.

And for the end, one of my favourite: Fred le Chevalier. This mural was made especially for this little semi-public garden in 18th district in Paris. As we can see, the main characters hold the flower pots, so it wasn't random (the garden is about the flowers). There are also the characters with suns. Maybe it represents the seasons (but they are only three...)? And the big demons are transformed this time into kind of trees, to close this "garden composition".

Only this little boy, standing aside seems to be mysterious. Maybe he is a Little Prince waiting for his rose to bloom?

Alias: Invader. Space Invader!

The great moment came. The moment of invading this website, too. As it is impossible to not come across him in the city, either this blog couldn't stay without a post about him. The French street artist Invader (his website, blog or Wikipedia article), who pastes up his mosaic works around the world, become one of the best well known urban-street-artist. His characters that are inspired by the arcade game Space Invaders, are made up from little mosaic pieces, like the characters are made up from pixels. 

There's a nice and clear FAQ-like interview on his website (although it's from 2008), explaining shortly the general idea of the Invader's actions and activities within the cities. I will paste a few answers here, the most essential to understand his work.

Basically, I guess around 1000 or more little invaders-mosaics are pasted all around Paris already. I noticed that the work of Invader periodically undergoes some metamorphosis. In the beginning of his work - early 90's, they were more simple, "pixelated" and very alike invaders from the games. However, with the time they have started to relate much more to the surrounding. For example picture below shows the mosaic with the paint roller, because the name of the street is "Impasse des peintres". After, another and another, let's say, "species" were produced.

Quote from Invader's website: "How many people are involved? Just me. In the eight years (as the interview is from 2008 - it's been 13 years already) I've been working on this project, I've traveled to 35 cities on all five continents with the sole intention of "invading" them! Having said that, people have sent me photos of Space Invaders in towns I've never set foot in! I see it as a positive thing, a kind of tribute."

Quote from Invader's website: "What's the Space Invaders project about? The idea is to "invade" cities all over the world with characters inspired by first-generation arcade games, and especially the now classic Space Invaders.[...]"

Quote from Invader's website: "What made you choose Space Invaders as the main character for the project? Lots of reasons. I see them as a symbol of our era and the birth of modern technology, with video games, computers, the Internet, mobile phones, hackers and viruses. And "space invader" is a pretty good definition of what I'm doing... invading spaces!"

Mosaic below looks like a "very special edition". Nothing strange if we know that it's pasted/cemented up in the Rue de Candie street, so one of the most popular, strategic and artistic-busy spot in Paris.