Parisian Street Art

If you have seen the excellent film by Banksy about Street Art, Exit Through the Gift Shop, you will be familiar with "Space Invader", the French street artist, introduced in the film as the supposed cousin of "Mr Brainwash". Space Invader or Invader makes mosaics of the pixellated low-res  characters from early 1980s video games then, starting in Paris, they are put up on walls around a city as an invasion. Several cities around the world have now been "invaded" but Paris is where it all began and I believe there are now over 1000 of the characters stuck up on the walls and buildings there. Not everyone approves, but my children have always loved Banksy's stuff and spotted their first Invader piece when we were in London a few years ago. So when we were in Paris a few weeks ago, staying at no. 53 Rue de Turennes in the Marais district, they were delighted to find a large space invader next door to us. That was the start of there game where a scoring system was devised to see who could spot the next one. I cheated and spotted more when I went out jogging, so my score was the highest, but by the end of our trip we were all walking about the streets of Paris craning our necks upwards the whole time, peering around corners to see who could spot the next one. Here are a few we took snaps of. One of their favourites was spotted from on a train outside Montparnasse station, a Nintendo mushroom, but there are hundreds more out there. If it has a number and points beside the photo below that's for the anoraks out there, Invader's own naming system and points score. Go have a look!

Rue de Turennes

At the Metro station across from the Catacombs, Paris

PA_575 50 points

"PA_746 50 points"

PA_926 30 points

The wee Octopus guy underneath
is spreading too

PA_682 30 points
Q-bert, in the Marais, good game, better mosaic

PA_769 50 points
I think Invader is getting peeved at some of them being pulled down?

Opposite the Pompidou Centre, someone has added a ship shooting at it, made from Lego

A Galaxian at Place de la Bastille, PA_555

My favourite, a sombre black one near Père Lachaise cemetery

"PA_961 50 points"

A day-trip to Chartres to marvel at the medieval cathedral soon became a day of "who can spot the next Invader mosaic in THIS invaded town?"

Chartres

Chartres

Chartres

Chartres

Chartres

So Invader has started a rash of other street artists/ vandals plastering their stuff over Parisian walls, with varying degrees of ability and imagination. An honourable mention goes to Gregos who has casts of his face eerily pushing through the walls all over the place.

Or what about a bit of humour from Clet Abraham, "Lifting the Taboo".



Chartier Restaurant, Paris

I've just returned from a short holiday and want to quickly jot down my praise for one of my highlights. On our trip we had our first visit to the Costa del Sol in Spain to attend a wedding in Gibraltar. Nice apes, the Alhambra at Granada is a sight to behold, Ronda is lovely and had me picking Hemingway's "For Whom the Bell Tolls" off the shelf for the first time in years. Then a few days in Paris, climbing every tall structure in the city and taking our first trip into the catacombs at the request of our children, which was excellent by the way.

However there were two highlights for us. For my three children it was competing with each other to be the next to spot a mosaic by the street artist/ graffiti artist "Invader" (more on that another time). For me the highlight was getting to go back to Chartier Restaurant again. I'll do a quick blog to extol its virtues as I'm amazed to find when I mentioned it on twitter from Paris that only my brother had heard of it!

Since 1869 they've been preparing decent French food at decent prices, with phenomenally good service here. The first time I was taken there was as a 9 year old on a "Paris Travel" coach holiday to the city and it made a lasting impression on me. The elegant dining room with it's hat stands and mirrored walls, the cramped tables where a stranger is likely to be sharing a table with you once it starts to fill up and the waiters memory skills and tradition of annotating your order on the paper tablecloth, then jotting down the addition to work out your bill. When I went there last week, over 30 years since my first visit, none of that had changed and I sat with a smile on my face through the whole meal.

It is across from metro station Grands Boulevards, up a short courtyard at 7 rue du Fauboug Montmartre. It opens at 6pm most evenings, but get there early if you don't want to queue, however the queue moves along quickly.

Inside it looks like a made up Parisian cafe should, but it is all genuine and the interior is listed so

unlikely to change. Every time I've been to Paris since that first trip with my parents I've made a point of returning to Chartier's and everything that I liked about my first visit is still the same today on my umpteenth visit.

The menu changes regularly but here is the menu on the day we were there.

It is all standard French fare, but well cooked and reasonably priced and I could happily spend a whole week going back every day to work my way through it. The wine by the glass, pichet or bottle is tasty and inexpensive.

Trying to expose my children to maximum Frenchness they started with snails, whilst I ordered the steak tartare (raw minced beef, onions, capers, etc I think and it went down very nicely too, thank you for asking).
 
 We all had a great time, great food and for the five of us to have three courses plus wine and coffees it came to about 120 Euros, the addition scrawled on the tablecloth as usual.

"Your bill, sir"

Anyway, here ends my public service announcement. If you have been to Paris and haven't been to Chartier's I think you are missing a treat. We left fairly early in the evening as the service is quick but this was the queue outside as we were leaving.


You have been warned.