Tag Archives: Street Art

Street Art in Florence

There is probably no city in the world without some Street Art. After my discoveries of Banksy, Space Invader all over the world and the Mirror Mosaic in Pully, here are some pictures from Florence.

This artist seems to be known via his signature, .K and a couple of other web pages describe his or her work: Exit/Enter and The Elusive “.K”. The next pictures include him again but also famous Clet Abraham who is acting all over the world.

Here is a little more.

Here is another link of his work in Florence: Florence street sign art by Clet. Finally what about this poetic work?

When Entrepreneurship Meets Street Art

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From time to time, I post articles not related to start-ups and entrepreneurship, but to other topics such as Street Art for example. Now comes the opportunity to join both thanks to Banksy. Indeed I can even relate both to migrants (who are a critical component of entrepreneurship). Banksy recently created the following Street Art work:

Banksy explained: “We’re often led to believe migration is a drain on the country’s resources, but Steve Jobs was the son of a Syrian migrant. Apple is the world’s most profitable company, it pays over $7 billion a year in taxes—and it only exists because they allowed in a young man from Homs.” Do I need to add about the importance of migrants in high-tech entrepreneurship? If yes, just read again AnnaLee Saxenian, Migration, Silicon Valley, and Entrepreneurship.

Art as an Answer to the Tragedy of Life

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This blog is about Start-ups. But from time to time, I take the freedom of touching other topics. Often about Art. It will be again the case here. And also when tragic events occur. Last Friday, Paris was stricken again. And I do not have any answer but to say I believe in Peace and Love, not in war and hate. My brother sent me two beautiful pictures he took in Paris recently. They mean a lot.

My friend Dominique sent me a quote from René Girard in “Achever Clausewitz”, 2007, Champs Gallimard, pages 57/58« Ces échecs de résolution [de conflit] sont fréquents quand deux groupes « montent aux extrêmes » : nous l’avons vu dans le drame yougoslave, nous l’avons vu au Rwanda. Nous avons beaucoup à craindre aujourd’hui de l’affrontement des chiites et des sunnites en Irak et au Liban. La pendaison de Saddam Hussein ne pouvait que l’accélérer. Bush est, de ce point de vue, la caricature même de ce qui manque à l’homme politique, incapable de penser de façon apocalyptique. Il n’a réussi qu’une chose : rompre une coexistence maintenue tant bien que mal entre ces frères ennemis de toujours. Le pire est maintenant probable au Proche Orient, où les chiites et les sunnites montent aux extrêmes. Cette escalade peut tout aussi bien avoir lieu entre les pays arabes et le monde occidental. Elle a déjà commencé : ce va et vient des attentats et des « interventions » américaines ne peut que s’accélérer, chacun répondant à l’autre. Et la violence continuera sa route. L’affrontement sino-américain suivra…. » which translates as follows:

So my reaction goes elsewhere. I recieved emails on Friday night and Saturday from the Space Invader community checking that everyone was all right. People who love street art go out to find the works and take pictures. Indeed Invader was in the same mood last January. He is now invading New York City, with a fifth wave. By following him with a work in progress, I see art as an answer to the tragedy of life.

Here is my own work in progress:

as well as my map (if I gave you access – Invader asks people not to give inidcations to people who destroy his work).

Space Invaders in Paris and Tokyo: an update

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Not directly linked to my main blog activity, I publish from time to time about Street Art. The summer is a good time for summarize findings and I did some work about my Paris and Tokyo’s quest of Space Invaders. Paris has now 1167 invasions. Tokyo is still at 138 but I could find old ones online.

Here are also two other nice works. First my favorite artist, “Mirror Man” from Pully (Switzerland) who created this in Paris.

– Breaking Bad

– Cost

More “seriously” here are some stats about Paris (updated as of October 2015 with 1182 invasions)

So my synthesis, which you also find on SlideShare gives this:

Paris: from PA_1000 to …

Space Invaders Paris from PA-1000 from Herve Lebret

Toyko

Space Invaders Tokyo 2015 from Herve Lebret

Street Art, Space Invaders and Mirrors in Pully

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The recent weeks have been fun for me relatively to Street Art. First I found a really beautiful mirror in Pully. I have now found more than 40 places with about 50 mosaics.

Second I accidentally found two Space Invaders in Tokyo. Quite nice too! I finished compiling the Tokyo Space Invaders and have pictures for most of the 138 which have been put there..)

(tk_093)

(tk_104)

Finally, I finished my crazy work of compiling all Parisian ones. I have counted 1’139 works until now (May 2015). Crazy probably but fun… you can find the full compilation in my post about Space Invaders in Paris.

(pa_1139)

Space Invader in Paris

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A very short post about Space Invaders in Paris. Up to now, more than 1100 ceramics have been created, most of them destroyed by the way.

In September 2014, I began to compile data about Paris. From time to time I add more info about them. Here are pdfs files about specific arrondissements:
the 1st,
the 2nd,
the 3rd,
the 4th,
the 5th,Preview Changes
the 6th,
the 7th,
the 8th,
the 9th,
the 10th,
the 11th,
the 12th,
the 13th,
the 14th,
the 15th,
the 16th,
the 17th,
the 18th,
the 19th,
the 20th
the Surburbs
and also the 1000+ Paris Invaders. All of them are also available on Slideshare.

If you are interested with my excel file with 1000+ entries, just ask me! Below is / was my Paris map. However, I got a message from the Invader team in June 2015. They complain about the high rate of destruction of their works and asked me to hide as much information as possible about the location the Invaders. My maps are therefore now private and my pdfs much less informative. Sorry for this and good luck to those who look for them just to shoot pictures…

Following this message and after my full compilation, I did a few stats, which I will let you discover if you are interested:

Brussels, Street Art and Space Invader

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Two articles tonight on my blog. A serious one coming, a huge criticism of Christensen’s disruptive innovation and an equally important one on Street Art. Yesterday there wwa a magnificent athletics meeting in Brussels where two high jumpers soared ever higher, and tried in vain for the world record at … 2.46m. It was beautiful to see. It was the perfect opportunity to show the work of Invader in Brussels in March 2012.

Here is the pdf file: Space Invader in Brussels. He obviously did not fail to invade the symbol of the city!

Street art again: Space Invader in Grenoble

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Street Art is a strange combination of references to art of course, but also to sociology, politics and economy. It might be why I became interested in the phenomenon and mention it here, in a blog related to start-ups which are also a strange combination of creation, social policy and economy. Both reconsider the established world, the institutions. Street Art interferes with private property and invades places it is not allowed to touch in theory. Street Art revisits consumerism and capitalism in a very interesting manner. And in the end, it became a part of consumerism, capitalism and the established art world. In a way, it’s exactly the same thing with start-ups. The successful ones become a part of the established economy. Also, both appeared without a clear objective. The computer, the Internet were nearly as useless as art in its first years. In the next picture, what does belong to advertising and what to art?

Whatever I continue my virtual and real visits to street artists with Space Invader in Grenoble in 1999. As you may imagine, there is not much left, but still a lot online! Attached is my pdf compilation of Space Invader Grenoble invasion.

PS: You can find my compilations of Banksy in New York, the beautiful mosaic-mirrors of Pully and the invasions of Lausanne, Geneva, Bern, Basel, and Toyko under the tag Street Art.

Space Invader in Tokyo

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Summer is not the season for start-ups, news is rather thin, with the exception perhaps of the GoPro IPO. I also use this blog to talk from time to time about street art and in particular of Space Invader. I also found an indirect way to discover a city, physically or virtually, is to start looking for these ephemeral works.

Japan has always been an attracting place for me, so I became interested in what the artist has done there. There are dozens of photographs online, some maps, so I made my own synthetic work in pdf format. [Other examples of SI fans in Tokyo include Nalice_Malice or True2death.]

Here is an updated version (May 2015) of my pdf file with more images.

Space Invaders Tokyo 2015 from Herve Lebret

I still have to make the actual discovery … Latest topic, Invader has launched its application for smart phone, Flash Invaders. It is perhaps this slight argument that will change my device!

HBO’s Silicon Valley – Episode 5: after Banksy, Chuy

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I could not imagine I would make a link between my posts on Street Art and the ones about Silicon Valley. But here is the missing link: in episode 5, you will know more about Chuy

and how our heroes decide to use a street artist for their logo. The result I cannot really show full size but here are extracts of the first attempts.

Here is the final logo.

And you can enlarge by clicking for the x-rated attempts. Not difficult to find who might pay $500k for the work. Not their best friends….

click here or on picture to enlarge – xrated

All this comes from the fact that when pp was thought of as a logo for PiedPiper, Erlich explodes:
“Lower case. Are you serious?
Twitter, lower case t
Google, lower case g
Facebook, lower case f
every f… company in the Valley has lower case.
Why? because it’s safe.
We are not going to do that…”

Now of course, there are also serious people in the series, talking about burn rate…

and process…

Start-Up

What we may still learn from Silicon Valley

Tag Archives: Street Art

Street Art in Florence

When Entrepreneurship Meets Street Art

Art as an Answer to the Tragedy of Life

Space Invaders in Paris and Tokyo: an update

Street Art, Space Invaders and Mirrors in Pully

Space Invader in Paris

Brussels, Street Art and Space Invader

Street art again: Space Invader in Grenoble

Space Invader in Tokyo

HBO’s Silicon Valley – Episode 5: after Banksy, Chuy