We love this massive "X" on these freight doors outside the Swiss Cultural Center in the trendy Les Marais district of Paris. The Swiss Cultural Center is kind of a hidden gem; the center is in a beautiful, post-modern multi-level exhibition space at the end of a narrow alley. The cneter is home to frequently changing art shows featuring work by young artists and designers. The alley, through which one pust pass to reach the center, is filled with great street art and graf.

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This phrase has greater resonance in light of recent riots in the suburbs of Paris and other cities throughout France, as well as ongoing events in Iraq. We found this phrase sprayed in English and Arabic on the asphalt outside the entrance to the Swiss cutural center's art gallery in Les Marais in Paris.

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Paris Street Art: Cat Head in Les Marais

Meow! Lots going on in this image taken in Le Marais -- street signs, some very French architecture, and a wheat-paste of a black-and-white cathead. As pure street art goes, wheat pastes are probably our favorite medium. That this cathead is approximately actual size and appears so random gives it a sense playfulness and disarms passersby. We found about half a dozen or so of these catheads around Paris, mostly in Les Marais. The cat's face and pattern make it a dead ringer for one of our cats in NYC.

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Our series of posts on Paris street art and graf continues with this image snapped in the Les Marais neighborhood. This plaster or wood plaque has a high-contrast image of doll's head rendered on it, but the eyes have been blocked out. Kind of creepy, but thus an effective, powerful piece of art. Les Marais is one of the hipper shopping districts on the right bank in Paris, full of boutiques, cafes and tons of street art. We're already saving spare scratch so that on our next trip to the City of Light we can rent an apartment for a week or so in the neighborhood (instead of paying through the nose for a tiny, overpriced tourist hotel room).

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Here's second shot of work by the influential French street artist who goes by the moniker Andre ("Tout Va Bien"), who left his mark in several New York City locations during a recent visit here. In the high-rent downtown neighborhood known as Nolita, Andre painted his iconic character "Monsieur A," which can be found throughout Paris and other European cities. Monsieur A is often painted as a thin, prancing stick-legged character with an "X" for one of the eyes.

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The influential French street artist who goes by the moniker Andre ("Tout Va Bien") left his mark in several New York City locations during a recent visit here. In the high-rent downtown neighborhood known as Nolita, Andre painted his iconic character "Monsieur A,"which can be found throughout Paris and other European cities. Monsieur A is often painted as a thin, prancing stick-legged character with an "X" for one of the eyes.

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Surface To Air (or Surface 2 Air) is an underground-ish creator's atelier, art gallery, event space and boutique all wrapped up into one at very central Paris address in a right-bank neighborhood near Les Halles. Here is a shot of the iron-shuttered, graf-scrawled storefront from across the lane. Like Colette a couple of kilometers away, Surface To Air is a small mecca of under-the-radar creative cool.

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Here's a shot of some graphic design in the form of cool logo/symbols painted on the storefront of Surface To Air in Paris.

Surface To Air (or Surface 2 Air) is an underground-ish creator's atelier, art gallery, event space and boutique all wrapped up into one at very central Paris address in a right-bank neighborhood near Les Halles. Here is a shot of the iron-shuttered, graf-scrawled storefront from across the lane. Like Colette a couple of kilometers away, Surface To Air is a small mecca of under-the-radar creative cool.

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This is a shot of the Surface To Air signage, a non-descript, sterile sans-serif logotype.

Surface To Air (or Surface 2 Air) is an underground-ish creator's atelier, art gallery, event space and boutique all wrapped up into one at very central Paris address in a right-bank neighborhood near Les Halles. Here is a shot of the iron-shuttered, graf-scrawled storefront from across the lane. Like Colette a couple of kilometers away, Surface To Air is a small mecca of under-the-radar creative cool.

Ivan Corsa Photo

Here's a close-up shot of the "Spliff" stencil we found in the hot Paris nabe of St. Germain des Pres. As street art, this is subversive on a couple of levels. But what's really striking is its illustrative comic-book style and the location on the pavement next to a public telephone (see contextual shot below) in a hood with some of the most desirable and fashionable real-estate in the city.

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Tunes on our Apple iPod: "Guero" by Beck
Kicks on our Feet: BAPESTA Lime-pink high-tops

Paris street art

Here's a the contextual shot of the "Spliff" stencil we found in the hot Paris nabe of St. Germain des Pres. As street art, this is subversive on a couple of levels. But what's really striking is its illustrative comic-book style and the location on the pavement next to a public telephone (see close-up shot above) in a hood with some of the most desirable and fashionable real-estate in the city.

Ivan Corsa Photo

Tunes on our Apple iPod: "Guero" by Beck
Kicks on our Feet: BAPESTA Lime-pink high-tops

Paris street art

Need we say more. In the chic Parisian nabe of St. Germain de Pres, the ubiquitous Andre the Giant visage stares out from a wheat-paste poster of the Obey/Giant Has A Posse icon by designer/artist/street-marketer Shepard Fairey.

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Need we say more. In the chic Parisian nabe of St. Germain de Pres, the ubiquitous Andre the Giant visage stares out from a wheat-paste poster of the Obey/Giant Has A Posse icon by designer/artist/street-marketer Shepard Fairey. Here the Obey wheat-paste is shown in context with some other street art below and in the upper right.

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A surprisingly large piece of graf in a surprsing location, in a very small, well-manicured park in Saint Germain des-Pres in Paris. This "up" has a African tribal aesthetic, which distinguishes it from much of the classic New York "wild-style" type of aerosol art that dominates the graf landscape worldwide.

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A black-and-white wheat-paste street art of some dude wearing sunglasses in the Saint Germain des-Pres neighborhood of Paris. The nabe is filled with art galleries and shops selling rare-books and antiquities, as well as some chi chi Parisian real estate.

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Another shot of some black-and-white wheat-paste street art of some dude wearing sunglasses in the Saint Germain des-Pres neighborhood of Paris. The nabe is filled with art galleries and shops selling rare-books and antiquities, as well as some chi chi Parisian real estate.

Ivan Corsa Photo

We've been in France for the better part of the last two weeks, so there's been a bit of a hiatus here at the Global Graphica site. But we're back with a vengeance and loads of new images of street art and graf and more from France. We took these shots while wandering around neighborhoods in the centers of Paris and Dijon.

The work and moniker of street artist Space Invader is inspired by the 1980's Japanese arcade video game sensation "Space Invaders." The artist's mosaics are large renderings of the digitally pixelated alien from the video game, and the tile-works come in various sizes and colors. We found this example of Space Invader in the trendy and gallery-filled Saint Germain-des-Pres neighborhood of Paris, which like many central nabes in the French capital is made up of expensive residential and commercial real estate.

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The work and moniker of street artist Space Invader is inspired by the 1980's Japanese arcade video game sensation "Space Invaders." The artist's mosaics are large renderings of the digitally pixelated alien from the video game, and the tile-works come in various sizes and colors. We found this example of Space Invader in the trendy and gallery-filled Saint Germain-des-Pres neighborhood of Paris, which like many central nabes in the French capital is made up of expensive residential and commercial real estate.

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Here's another up-close image of the trademark tile-work by street artist Space Invader in the Saint Germain-des-Pres neighborhood of Paris.

Ivan Corsa Photo

We've been in France for the better part of the last two weeks, so there's been a bit of a hiatus here at the Global Graphica site. But we're back with a vengeance and loads of new images of street art and graf and more from France. We took these shots while wandering around neighborhoods in the centers of Paris and Dijon.

The image here is a close-up shot of the well-known street artist Space Invader, whose work can be found in just about every major global city -- from New York to Tokyo to, well, Paris. We found this example of Space Invader in the trendy and gallery-filled Saint Germain-des-Pres neighborhood.

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