Sowat and Lek from Da Mental Vaporz have released a new screenprint.  Edition of 15, 50 x 70 cm, 1 colour hand painted by Lek and 1 layer screen printed by Sowat, on Fabriano Rosaspina 285gsm paper, signed and numbered by the artists and €120.00.  You can see each unique version here and they are available to buy now from www.same-oh.it

Sowat from DMV crew will be releasing his first lithograph with PrintThemAll.com on Friday 13th of March @ 2pm GMT, announcing his upcoming solo show with Richard & Lefeuvre Gallery in Geneva on 23rd April:




"Ars Longa Vita Brevis"
Edition of /50
4 colors lithograph
72 x 72,6 cm on 270 gr BFK Rives paper
Signed, stamped and numbered
Printed at IDEM studio, Paris for Print Them All

I am afraid price will be insane

Thank you, and yes, he is!

Saw it in person, wonderfull ! Indeed Sowat is a great guy

This is nice. Tempted, for sure.

Can't unsee...

Sowat
‘Ars Longa Vita Brevis’



Personal exhibition
23 April > 6 June 2015
Richard & The Feuvre Gallery In Richemond Geneva
Rue adhémar-fabri 8, 1201

French-American artist, Sowat grew up between the South of France and L.A. He now lives and works in Paris.
His artistic journey began at the end of the 90s along the railways of Marseille. He was then a graffiti writer. Adolescent, he spent his summers in California. There, he discovered the “cholo writing” – a calligraphy used by American gangs – through the work of an expert in this subject, Chaz Bojorquez.

From then on, Sowat did his outmost to take over this style and make it his until he developed his proper lan- guage.
For 20 years, from Marseille to Paris, Sowat multiplied the in situ interventions – legal or illegal. He crossed the country, Europe and then the world to do monumental exhibitions and walls with the members of his crew, the Da Mental Vaporz. Recently, he developed a duo work with Lek, a major figure of the Parisian graffiti scene. Their work is mixing archaeology, painting, ephemeral installations and experimental movies.

Following numerous projects born from a common passion, the urban exploration, it is, in fact, his work with Lek that made himself know by the large public of graffiti amateurs. In 2011, they built the “Mausolée” pro- ject. Reuniting almost 30 artists from the French graffiti scene, the project was maintained secret during the time of his fulfilment – so more than a year – and was finally revealed through the edition of an eponym book, the creation of an ephemeral exhibition and the diffusion online of a stop motion video on the music of Philip Glass. That way, the public discovered the multiple sides of a graffiti known as “Urbex” which clandestinely invaded the thousands square meters of an old and abandoned supermarket from the Paris suburbia.

The following year, they answered positively to the invitation of Jean de Loisy. Lek and SOwat entered the Pa- lais de Tokyo to reproduce this creative process by taking care of the building’s depths meaning the emergency issues, the backstairs, and all the other hidden places traditionally private. With the help of Dem189 and the curator Hugo Vitrani, they initiated the Lasco Project – first official program of urban art in the contemporary art center. They invited more than 50 artists of this avant-gardist scene to come and work with them in the quirkiest places of the institution.

It is during those interventions that Sowat & Lek realized the project “Tracés Direct” with Jacques Villeglé and about 20 other major artist of the French graffiti scene. Collaborative, this work was based on a black board of the institution on which the artists drew one by one with a piece of chalk, each of them erasing what the previous one made in front of Sowat & Lek camera. Nowadays, ornamented with the socio-political writings of Jacques Villeglé, this board and the video of the performance, which goes with it, are from now on part of the permanent collection of the Centre Pompidou in Paris. The first time for a graffiti work!

Since the summer 2014 and the end of the artistic residence at the Palais de Tokyo, the Galerie LE FEUVRE in Paris and the RICHARD & LE FEUVRE Gallery in Switzerland are representing Sowat. On canvas or paper, he is always looking for new calligraphy styles, with a bamboo stick or a spray can… Sometimes understan- dable, sometimes abstract, painted with energy or carefully applied, the lines Sowat is tracing on the canvas are as many link-up between the pure tag style – the writing – and the traditional calligraphy, between the raw universe of the abandoned buildings and the classical painting, between the graffiti energy and rapidity – often necessary to in the in situ interventions – and the calm and patience required by a studio work.

This short film by Os Gemeos and JR was first uploaded a few months ago but I can't see that it's been posted here so I thought I'd do so having just watched it at Palais de Tokyo:

(Sorry, can't work out how to embed the video from their Facebook pages so I've uploaded it to Vimeo.  Obviously happy to remove this is anyone isn't happy with this.)

The OGxJR pieces are part of LASCO Project #6 and here are some shots of Philippe Baudelocque's evolutionary and developmental chalk drawings which are also part of the project:







And here's some of Evol and KR's contributions from previous LASCO projects:

Try to get there for a guided tour of the LASCO Project; tour times are available here. They last about 45 minutes and you'll get a lot more background information about the pieces.  Some of the pieces are only accessible on the tour anyway but the OGxJR pieces are in the tunnels under the museum and aren't accessible at all to the public for safety reasons.

Oh, and look out for the Invaders; there's one inside and another on the outside of the Palais de Tokyo.

Lek and Sowat have spent the last year doing a residency at the prestigious Villa Médicis, which is the base of the French Academy in Rome and there are photos of some of the projects they've been working on below (photos courtesy of Svend Andersen, capodarte.it, Nicolas Gzeley and Lek & Sowat).  Both artists will shortly be opening separate solo shows in Paris exhibiting the work they've been producing over the course of the year long residency.


Lek's show, entitled 'XIX', is at Galerie 42b's new permanent space near République and runs from 3 November to 3 December:


Sowat's show, entitled 'Tempus Fugit' is across town at Galerie le Feuvre and runs from 17 November to 17 December: