Street Artists Turned Condemned Paris Tower into Sprawling Art Installation1

By Steve Wilson

Condemned apartments covered in spray paint2. spray paint: 噴漆。have probably never been in such demand. An entire apartment tower in eastern Paris has been turned over3. turn over: 移交，允許（某人）使用。to 105 street artists from around the world, giving them a chance to turn each home into its own art installation during the building’s final days.

The artists had seven months to tag “Tour Paris 13”—named for the district where it’s located—coating apartments sometimes still filled with debris, trash and furniture.4. coat: 給……涂（蓋）；debris:瓦礫堆，廢墟。All their work will vanish in 2014, as the tower, which has nine stories and a basement, was demolished piece by piece after October, 2013.5. vanish: 消失；basement: 地下室；demolish: 拆除，拆毀（建筑物）。

“I really wanted the artist to intervene on a whole space,” said Mehdi Ben Cheikh, the gallery owner who initiated the project.6. intervene on: 干涉，干預(yù)；initiate: 發(fā)起，使開始?！癐 didn’t want the spectators7. spectator: 參觀者，觀眾。to come and look at art. I wanted the spectators to come and enter an art work... which means there are things everywhere—we enter a room,and have to turn around in every direction to understand the surroundings.”

The result is a tower exhibiting a range of artistic styles. There’s a skullinspired mural, Arabic calligraphy, a bloody bathroom, and a glow-in-thedark cow crawling with snakes.8. mural: 壁畫；calligraphy: 書法；glow-in-the-dark: 在黑暗中發(fā)光的；crawl: 爬行。Would-be visitors lined up for up to eight hours for a one-hour visit, with signs at various points around the block estimating their wait time. Only 49 people were allowed in at one time in the apartment block, which overlooks the Seine.

不是只有高雅才是藝術(shù)，不是只有永恒才是經(jīng)典。平民化的街頭藝術(shù)家，在即將拆遷的樓群內(nèi)盡情揮灑自己的靈感和畫技，讓人們感受到街頭涂鴉藝術(shù)的震撼力量。

Some of the artists of “Tour Paris 13” participated in an unprecedented international urban contemporary art auction on October 25th, 2013, with pieces created spur of the moment standing alongside works from Keith Haring and Basquiat.9. “Tour Paris 13”的部分藝術(shù)家參加了2013年10月25日舉辦的歷史上第一次當(dāng)代城市藝術(shù)國際拍賣會，他們即興創(chuàng)作的作品和凱斯·哈林、巴斯奇亞的作品一同展賣。unprecedented: 前所未有的，史無前例的； spur of the moment: 一時興起的，即席的；Keith Haring: 凱斯·哈林，20世紀(jì)80年代的美國街頭繪畫藝術(shù)家；Basqiuat: 巴斯奇亞，美國藝術(shù)家。他先是以紐約涂鴉藝術(shù)家的身份獲得大眾的關(guān)注，后來成為一位成功的20世紀(jì)80年代的表現(xiàn)主義藝術(shù)家。

“I’ve been following graffiti and street art for about 30 years and so this represents another step in slightly different direction,” said Martha Cooper, the famous street photographer who is documenting their work in progress.10. graffiti: （公共場所墻壁上的）涂鴉；document: v.（以書面或膠片的方式）記錄。

“We are the new artists. Graffiti art is the world’s biggest art movement,” said Mear One, an artist from Los Angeles who was painting live outside the Drouot Auction House11. Drouot Auction House: 巴黎德魯奧拍賣行，位于法國巴黎，成立于1852年，是法國最大、最重要的拍賣行之一。. “In the 1970s, art was so elite12. elite: 精英的，卓越的。that only the upper level people could do art or appreciate. So it got boring... and now, we are in a situation where this is the art form. All that other art is cool, but it has roots in the past, and we are the here and the now.”