District 13 in the 9th

Metro'd over to the 9th arrondissement to visit auction house Hôtel Drouot.  This week, from Thursday to Sunday, Hôtel Drouot has been hosting the first District 13 Art Fair - an international exhibition and auction of street art.  The art fair has been initiated by Galerie Itinerrance - a Paris gallery supporting the world of street art.  There were gallery representations from around the world, sessions in conversation with represented artists, films, and all was open to the public this weekend.  The work was diverse, from ink on paper to mixed media to sculpture - humourous, scornful, political, sad - originals and prints.  Really absorbing.

Galerie Itinerrance has been involved in some collaborative exhibitions, most recently the Tour Paris 13 where they secured a high rise social housing block scheduled for demolition, invited street artists from around the world to work on the interior over a period of six months, and then opened the building as an exhibition to the public for a month - and then it was demolished.  Some of the same artists have contributed their work to the exterior of the new housing blocks in the 13th arrondissement - we had seen this work from the train but hadn't known the story behind it before today.

Brent couldn't resist a print of work by Loretto, so now we have a permanent memento of the exhibition to hang on our wall!

Captured a little street art myself ... Parisian style ...