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My Book by Critères Editions (October 2009) :
www.criteres.org/editions/book_detail.php?id=35&colID...

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INTERVIEW GIVEN TO GRAFFITI ART MAGAZINE (OCT. 09)

"C215, artiste pochoiriste français dont la notoriété s'est construite hors de nos frontières, expose pour la première fois à Paris son travail de découpe ciselée très identifiable, avec son univers peuplé de figures d'orphelins, de clochards, de mendiants et autres laissés pour compte du capitalisme.

A quand remonte ton engouement pour la rue ?
J'ai 35 ans et la peinture de rue m'attire depuis que je suis adolescent, ayant vu assez tôt, bien que provincial, les premiers films montrant le graffiti New-Yorkais et l'émission télévisée de Sydney dont j'étais grand fan. Vinrent assez vite quelques expériences de lettrages réalisés au spray, à Orléans, au milieu des années 80, puis d'autres plus psychédéliques avec la Spiral Tribe au début des années 90. Après un séjour derrière les barreaux, j'ai poursuivi ensuite de longues études en langues et en histoire de l'art, avec la volonté de m'insérer de manière conformiste dans la société, même si j'ai toujours continué à dessiner de manière académique. Mais à la naissance de ma fille Nina, en 2003, il y a eu un grand virage dans ma vie. Devenu cadre commercial, je n'étais pas satisfait de ma vie. Je me suis donc offert deux années de réflexion et j'ai découvert ce qu'était devenu le graffiti, à savoir le «Street Art», qu'on appelait encore post-graffiti. Le choc fut immense.
En 2006, j'ai organisé des expos de groupe dans le cadre de l'association C215 ce qui fut une expérience très enrichissante. Le contact régulier avec de nombreux artistes de la scène graffiti et la rencontre avec le brésilien Highraff m'ont amené à reprendre les bombes, d'abord à main levée. J'ai développé rapidement un style tribal et organique un peu plus élaboré que l'étaient mes dessins de carnets, à travers une dizaine de peintures murales dans Paris.
Je me suis alors aperçu, certainement influencé par Carricondo, qu'il était possible de concilier dessin organique et représentation figurative. Et le pochoir, que j'appréciais beaucoup, semblait s'y prêter. Le premier de mes pochoirs date de 2006, il s'agit d'un portrait de la mère de ma fille, que j'ai collé dans Paris dans l'intention de fabriquer des photos souvenirs pour Nina. C'est au printemps 2007 que le pochoir est devenu une obsession. Depuis je ne fais plus que cela et cette vie de "stencil artist" me convient parfaitement.

Tu pourrais désormais te contenter de peindre pour les galeries, mais tu peins toujours autant dans les rues. Pourquoi cet engagement ?
Il ne s'agit pas d'un engagement selon moi, mais d'une évidence : la technique du pochoir est faite pour la rue. Je découpe en effet des pochoirs pour réaliser des œuvres abouties et porteuses de sens que je vais ensuite peindre dans les rues, en toute liberté et surtout sans autorisation.
L'utilisation de mes pochoirs est d'ailleurs très majoritairement destinée à la rue. Je ne peins qu'une fois sur dix sur un support qui puisse être commercialisé. Puisque la rue est au centre de mon activité, je me finance donc par des commandes et les expositions en galerie. Je vais exposer en galerie lorsqu'elles me donnent carte blanche et me permettent de développer un projet d'installation abouti que je n'aurais pu réaliser dans la rue. D'ailleurs, je n'y présente jamais les choses telles que je les aurais peintes dans la rue, ni sur des supports inappropriés : je déteste peindre au spray sur des toiles par exemple.

Tu peins dans les rues sans autorisation mais tu te présentes au public à visage découvert et sous ton patronyme. Pourquoi ?
Quand on peint sur des trains, des bâtiments publics ou des murs vierges, je comprends qu'on veuille protéger son identité, mais de nombreux artistes de rue se dissimulent pour des questions d'attitude, voire de marketing... dans mon cas, j'essaie de peindre des choses belles et abouties, qui puissent être comprises et appréciées par tous sur des supports négligés et détériorés. Je ne me considère donc pas comme un vandale, et veille à ne jamais nuire à qui que ce soit, sur le fond comme sur la forme. Je ne ressens donc aucune culpabilité à peindre sans autorisation. En 2008, je me suis fait arrêter à Brooklyn, à Istanbul, à Amsterdam et même deux fois à Paris, mais à chaque fois je me suis expliqué sur ma démarche, que j'assume pleinement, et la police m'a toujours laissé filer sans engager de suites administratives ou pénales.

Dans quelle ville as-tu préféré peindre ?
La prochaine ! Chaque ville a on mode de vie et ses particularités, notamment architecturales, mais aussi culturelles et légales, et l'on passe rapidement d'une expérience à l'autre. L'intérêt consiste à découvrir de nouvelles choses. Pour moi c'est le but même du graffiti, que je compare souvent au surf : Il est stupide de surfer tous les jours sur le même spot. Il faut donc voyager pour s'enrichir. Je suis parti peindre ici et là : New York, Los Angeles, Londres, Dakar, Barcelone, Casablanca, Tel Aviv, New Delhi, Rome, Venise, Vienne, Bratislava, Amsterdam, Berlin, Varsovie et Istanbul.

Tu reviens parfois dans certaines villes pour y développer ton travail de rue. Pourquoi ?
En général, la première fois que je vais dans une ville, je travaille à partir de photos que j'ai empruntées en ligne. Il s'agit souvent d'images assez naïves au fond. Si j'en avais les moyens je reviendrais partout pour y peindre des choses beaucoup plus personnelles, à partir de photos que j'aurais prises moi-même sur place. Revenir sur les lieux, c'est aussi une manière d'approfondir le travail, notamment pour les mises en abime architecturales. C'est une démarche lourde et que je trouve intéressante. Quand je vais à Istanbul, que je prends un immeuble en photo, que je me rends ensuite chez l'imprimeur pour en faire un agrandissement et que dans ma chambre d'hôtel, je découpe cette scène pour aller la peindre à l'endroit même où je l'ai prise, il s'agit alors d'une pièce de rue unique. Je pourrais peindre ce pochoir n'importe où dans le monde, il n'aura jamais autant d'impact ni de sens qu'à cet endroit.

Vas-tu bientôt présenter ton travail dans une exposition parisienne ?
En 2007, je me suis lassé de peindre à Paris, notamment dans les rues habituellement dédiées au «Street Art», que je trouve galvaudées. Pour moi, le graffiti est une exploration du monde, et la possibilité d'une certaine odyssée personnelle. J'ai eu par ailleurs de très bons retours sur mon travail à l'étranger, ayant déjà exposé en solo à Sao Paulo et New York en 2008, et Londres cette année. Cela me soulage et me fait donc vraiment plaisir qu'au terme de cette odyssée je puisse avoir une expérience en galerie parisienne, en entamant une collaboration avec Studio 55, qui sera pour cette année mon galeriste exclusif à Paris. Depuis deux ans le Studio 55 me propose de participer à des expositions collectives, que j'ai toutes refusées. Mais mon obstination et la persévérance d'Emmanuel ont fini par payer, puisqu'il m'a proposé récemment des projets intéressants, dont cette exposition personnelle à l'Espace Cardin. Comme le diraient certains footballeurs, cette exposition parisienne, parallèlement à la publication d'un opuscule sur mon travail de rue chez Critères édition, constitue «une certaine forme de consécration», pour le débutant que je suis encore... "

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INTERVIEW GIVEN TO "STREET ART STOCKHOLM"
www.streetartstockholm.se

"I´m just a stencil artist and this makes me really happy "
January 16th, 2009 under Intervjuer

S.A.S. : Why do you paint in the streets? And why stencils?
C215 : "The streets are just my favourite gallery, I been in love with graffiti since i was a child. Sure I did draw, paint free hand, with brushes, with cans, but stencils are the best way to quick place something beautiful anywhere in the streets, without any fucking authorisation."

S.A.S. : How did you start? I´ve heard you started out with painting real size vespas in Paris.
C215 : "The vespas was in Orleans, the city I lived in when I was 14. I had an hilarious yellow vespa quite famous in this small city and to provoke people I did painted a few yellow vespas instead of a graffiti hand. The style was very weak at this period. I was a kid more interested in impressing friends and girls than doing good art"

S.A.S. : How would you describe your own development?
C215 : "Waouhhhh long story. I´ve been drawing a lot since i was a kid. I have now a master in art history so the influences are really hard to define. The founder of street art Ernest Pignon Ernest, who stays for me as the best artist of the century."

S.A.S. : It seems like you travel a lot… Why ?
C215 : "For me traveling and painting is the same. I always compare graffiti to surf. If you stay on the same beach your whole life surfing the same wave you are a looser. Morocco is for me the best place to paint for so many reasons…

S.A.S. : Why faces?
C215 : "Faces reflect the personnality, you can even read a full life on a marked face. I guess that a lot people never meet tramps because they don’t pay attention to them. They have been fascinating me for a long time. You have to be very courageous to accept such a tough life. I paint in the streets people really belonging to the streets: tramps, but also beggars, street orphans from the poorest countries. This is a stencil tradition by the way."

S.A.S. : Saw some stencils from New Delhi – amazing stuff. Do you work with different styles and themes in different contries?
C215 : "Context is the most important thing in street art. The only thing I never chang is my logo. There should be a stencil for each situation. Reproduce the same stencil everywhere should be boring, no?"

S.A.S. : How do you get an idea to a new stencil?
C215 : "I have more obsessions than ideas, or prefer think so, because I have in mind most the things I would like to paint for a decade or more. Painting in the streets gives experience and interacts with your process."

S.A.S. : Do you sketch a lot?
C215 : "Not anymore."

S.A.S. : Any tips for the ones that is interested I developing their stencils?
C215 : "The best tip I could give is: please never follow any advice, because your process should be directed by the precise necessity of your art. There is no common rule. Moreover the most important thing is to stay unique and find a proper style. if you adopt someone process, you also adopt his style: this just makes you a copycat. Reading a bit about theory of colours can help sometimes. I like to use Sabotaz cans because they dry very fast. Take your time before going to the streets painting, take your time for cutting and first find your own style before running for success."

S.A.S. : How do you bring the stuff with you?
C215 : "In my bag. Just in my bag. I don’t drive …"

S.A.S. : Is this a political statement for you as well?
C215 : "I think so. Everything is getting gentrified in Europe and America. Western people unfortunately think that graffiti undervalue real estate. Banksy is bringing revolution because he officially adds value to a building when painting on. I love this idea. We are a value. "

S.A.S. : What do you tell people who tell you that this is illegal?
C215 : "That I don't care and that the problem is the law, not my way of painting."

S.A.S. : What kind of response do you get?
C215 : "Always good reactions, maybe because i put a lot of work in my stencils, and because I try to paint universal things like characters and faces for emotion, that everybody can feel and understand. It is maybe different when you just paint for the “street-art addicts”.

S.A.S. : How do you avoid getting arrested?
C215 : "I prefer to paint in the day because I have nothing to hide and do not feel guilty at all. By the way I have been arrested three times that year : Paris, Amsterdam and Brooklyn, but they did let me go everytime…"

S.A.S. : Heard you do workshops as well…
C215 : "Not so much. I do workshops but not in western countries. I did one in Brasil and another one in Morocco that. Kids of these countries really need these skills to make a little money. By the way I like the idea of exporting this technique in such countries. Wait and see what the seed would give."

S.A.S. : Anything more you want to say?
C215 : "Stop consuming."

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INTERVIEW GIVEN TO WOOSTER COLLECTIVE (November 18, 2008)

"C215 - "The A's To Our Q's'"

Age: 35

Hometown: Paris

Where do you now live?: Paris - Belleville

Where would you most like to live?: Morocco

Who was your first "hero" in life?: Indiana Jones

What is your favorite thing to do on your day off from work?: To know it I should stop working some day

What is your favorite color?: Blue

Who (or what) do you love?: my 5 years old daughter Nina

Who and/or what are some of your influences?
Ernest Pignon-Ernest is my main reference, being the first French street artist in history, and doing amazing stencils and silkscreened posters outside already in the 70's.

What other artists do you most admire?
I am a big fan of the portraits of Stéphane Carricondo, from the 9th Concept crew, I love James Jean drawings and the watercolours of my very good friend Dan23. In the streets the best for me is for sure mister Banksy.

Wooster: How would you describe your art to someone who could not see it?
C215: I am for one year traveling the world to paint contextual stencils in the streets, mostly by day and without any authorization. I like to paint portraits, but also animals and complete streetscapes. You can find my works on tagged doors, rusty mailboxes or int he corner of your street. I like to interact with locals, where ever I go, cutting ad hoc stencils for each trip : Brasil, Israel, India, Morocco or Poland streets can not be hit in the same way. I try to express with stencils something not so easy to get with such tools : to provide feeling and emotions to the passing by people.

Wooster: What other talent would most like to have?
C215: I would love to play piano, but I am quite dyslexic

Wooster: What do you fear the most?
C215: Losing the use of my right hand or my both eyes (losing all this at the same time i would be very unlucky !)

Wooster: What is your greatest ambition?
C215: To teach my daughter my technical skills if she could be interested and make her proud of her father when she will be older.

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INTERVIEW GIVEN TO ARTASTY.COM (MARCH 2008)

C215, is it a code? Why this name?
C215 corresponds to my name Chris, but could also be a cell number in which I could have spent too much time

Where are you from? What's your background?
I am originally from Paris, I've studied a lot, with 2 masters in history and art, and some foreign languages. I used to work in export, in the decoration area. It was a bit too much for me and I decided to quit everything when my daughter, Nina was born, and came back to my true passion.

How would you define your work and what inspires you?
I do stencil on all supports and the street is what I prefer. My favourite’s artists are the classics of the big centuries and for the more modern ones Pignon Ernest stay the basis. Next, there were meetings and shocks, Carricondo, Swoon, and my friend Dan23 with whom I evolved for the last 2 years

What are the essential tools you use to create your pieces?
Everything I find. I do not have any definite tools. I like to build my work depending in contexts and this applies to the tools I also use.

How do you choose your images and where they are placed in the street?
My images are the result of meeting with models and photographers. They all mean something, the beggars, the refugees, the orphans. Broken people rejected by the society and capitalism. I placed these images in "nonplaces", in the streets and on devalued supports, tagged and rusty doors, teared paste-up, broken or burned walls and some bins that I particularly like.

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INTERVIEW GIVEN TO FATCAP.COM (JULY 2008)

FT: Where are you from? What’s your background?
C215: I am from Paris. I have always been drawing and I painted in the street with a spray bomb for the first time almost twenty years ago. It already was “vespas” of a real size and I still paint them today, but with stencils not on “free hand” anymore … I followed university studies in art history, until a PhD at the Sorbonne. Things only became serious little by little.

FT: What was the interest in art and what led you to create all those stencils?
C215: The stencil allows me to combine my passion for drawing and that of graffiti. It is so good to affix in a street the work of several days in a few minutes and without any necessary authorization…

FT: How would you define your work and what inspires you?
C215: I do stencil, realistic but stylized, that I create as a craftwork without a computer, but along with a picture. I start with a picture to end up with another, the one of my work painted outdoors, which is part of a framework while diverting it.

FT: You seem to love the facial expressions, and you use the power of it through your talent. Can you explain to us why you do have this “obsession” ?
C215: The faces are landscapes, and they provide a wide variety of expressions, marking identities, backgrounds, therefore many messages. I paint mostly tramps, refugees and street kids, people who really live the experience of the street and to whom the street art is almost never intended.

FT: What was your best and your worst creation?
C215: We all feel that the latter is always the best until the next that disgusts us from it

FT: If your style was a music band or a song? Which one would it be?
C215: I like the swing, Cajun folklore, ska, and old-fashioned things.

FT: I saw a video of you in London. You are doing your artwork as if it was legal. Is it the best way not to be arrested?
C215: The problem is not me but the law, so I do not feel guilty doing it. Maybe it is more natural then.

FT: Do you do drugs? Do you need something particular to be creative?
C215: Ahaha if only I was creative, I never have ideas, only obsessions…

FT: Do you feel the work you are doing is something that should be preserved or stayed transience?
C215: This is not my concern. I am just doing it.

FT: Do you dream in Stencils and colors?
C215: Sometimes, but in fact I can translate any scene I see in everyday life in my stencil style with just a glimpse.

FT: What did you do last week?
C215: I was in Poland, doing a workshop and some paintings in Warsaw.

FT: What was your most adventurous and dangerous graffiti-stencil artwork?
C215: Painting my self-portrait outside the national portrait gallery in London, a Friday afternoon before a huge passing crowd without any authorization…

FT: What kind of reaction do you want to evoke with your art?
C215: I just want them to get an emotion. And make them sense again the feeling of freedom.

FT: What are your favorite spots?
C215: Rusty or all over tagged doors

FT: Can you talk about your work with dan23?
C215: He’s just one of my best friends and a big influence for me. It is a good emulation to have among one’s friends such a nice and talented artist.

FT: Describe a typical day for C215:
C215: I am a kind of working robot. I feel so happy that I can do my stuff everyday and I don’t need anything else.

FT: How do you choose your images and where they are placed in the street?
C215: Everything is contextualized and I prepare new stencils every day, so there are new street stencils done every week, each one prepared while thinking about the next trip.

FT: What do you think about hype?
C215: I don’t know what to think about it. I do not go out so much of my flat and studio if not for going out painting…

FT: Name an artist whose work you respect and admire.
C215: Ernest Pignon Ernest

FT: How would you describe street art and what makes it different from graffiti or would you say it all falls under the same umbrella of shit? Don’t you think it’s totally different?
C215: Graffiti is mainly marking his name with style in the city while street art is more aiming at transforming contextual situations in a defined architecture.

FT: How do you feel about the commercialization of street art in recent years?
C215: It could be good but if artists continue to do it in the streets. Many are now so busy with galleries that they forget the streets…

FT: What’s coming up in the next few month? Projects, shows, collab?
C215: Exactly. A lot of things. Too many certainly. I would love to stay somewhere quiet and hidden and cut new stuff without an Internet upload during months and then suddenly show everything

FT: What’s your real goal?
C215: Basically just being free of painting until I die. Surely also make my 5 years old daughter Nina proud of her father, and teach her what I know if she’s interested.

FT: Any words of wisdom?
C215: Stop consuming.

www.pointgmagazine.fr/10-questions-a-C215.html

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INTERVIEW GIVEN TO CFYE.COM (August 2009)

1) "What does it mean to you to be French? I've always admired France for having a strong identity, whether it is in music, poetry, film or art. How do you feel about that?
- Being French means a lot, France has a long and strong history which led a peculiar and complex identity. For a street artist it means a lot, since in the 60's Ernest Pignon did set up most of the street art rules, and that in 83 the stencil scene was already very active and interesting here, with people like Jef Aerosol, Miss Tic, Blek or Epsylon point. France has already a quite and long and complex stencil history. So it was very exciting to enter this scene. At another point, painting in France, especially Paris is quite boring compared to other cities or places. The public is not so excited about street art in France as it can happen in UK or in the US. Paris as a city is almost completely gentrified and turns into a museum for tourists. This situation pushed many French street artists to travel and do street art in other countries : from Jérôme Mesnager to Nemo or Jef Aerosol, from Space Invaders to JR or Zevs... So all things I am doing outdoors belongs to a very French tradition : doing stencils in the streets, traveling a lot for doing it worldwide."

2) You say a lot of French artists travel a lot, including yourself. I know one of the places you particularly like to go is Morocco. Why Morocco..the people, the country, the atmosphere? Can you tell us a bit about that?
- Morocco has a long tradition with painting, through calligraphy to abstract fine arts today, but also welcome many French classical painter travelling there from the XIXth Century, as Delacroix, Chasseriau and other Romantics. Nevertheless, what they did was more or less colonial painting. Not reality. Nothing done for the Morocco ordinary people...
The theoretical interest of painting now in Morocco is that there, outdoors walls are not really controlled by one sole owner, but everyone belonging to the street you want to paint in. You don't have to deal with the police, but with the neighbors. You don't face a law or capitalism, but collective control, moralistic anyway, and you can't do anything if you are not introduced during days to the community, explaining your project. I like this : anything done in public gets a lot of collective censorship in this modern Muslim society. I am learning the Arabic language. Best things in life are abstract things you can't buy, as learning a new foreign language."

3) "So in a sense, the place where you paint is as important as the work you put there? (not only the context of the environment, but also the community around it).
- I am not painting for me, so for sure I am painting for the people passing by my works. I try to respect everybody, and look for universal emotions through evocating portraits. I am always considering the reception by the neighborhood anywhere I am. I am painting quite a lot in my district and everyone knows me and I get a maximum of support. This is important for me."

4) "You put things in the street that belong there. The faces, the animals, real street scenes in general. Why add what is already there?
- People and things belonging to the streets are passing away, with time and life, as for my stencils. What is graffiti if not leaving a signed track of yours on a wall that you pass by ?"

5) " In another interview you said that you like the idea of a piece (of street art) adding value, instead of people thinking that it reduces property value. This now has taken such heights that people take artwork (including yours I saw) of the streets, to keep it at their home or sell it. What is your take on that?
- People taking off art from the streets are not collecting but destructing art, and for this reason a so called "street piece" shouldn't be accepted by the market : the artwork was supposed to be placed in a street, so that departing the piece and the defined situation or architectural and societal context turns to kill the meaning of the whole. Street art is for the streets, and when placed to the streets, it adds value to the city. So people who are interested in indoor pieces should go to galleries instead of destructing art in the streets, because we paint pieces that are sold here which were created for indoors situations ... this is the gallery part, i.e. doing stuff especially for indoor, a complete and coherent installation, with removable artworks, that people could buy and enjoy anywhere at home. This is also a financial necessity, completely different from the streets stuff, that I consider as a pleasure and a duty at the same time."

6) "Do you feel like the public, the viewers of your work, understand your work and the emotions behind it?
- A portrait is universal, and as far as you put portraits from the community people belong to, they can understand the feelings behind."

7) I was wondering, is there any place in the world you haven't been too yet, but you are dying to go?
- what I can say, is that street art is like surfing, people should never paint two times on the same spot and travel to experience new situations, new laws, new societies and cultures."

8) " Nicole told me to ask you about this Israeli artist (she can't remember the name) you showed her. Could you tell us a bit about this artist and what makes you so excited about his work?
- The Israeli artist is Adi Senned, he's on Facebook, you should interview him. I love his work because it is really personal and self expressive, whereas most of the stencil artists imitate someone else they consider bigger, in style, process and kind of result, expecting the same success by copying them. Banksy, Faile, Sten, Logan Hicks have so many copycats. At the end copycats advertise for the people they imitate. But they miss the most interesting part of street art: there is a place, and even possible success, for anybody doing real self expression, at one condition, that they imitate nobody when they paint, that they trust their own style and feeling instead of doing "in the way of"... It is the beginning of stencil art history, moreover in the streets, and many new things are still to be done. The problem is that young people study too much stencil artists they like instead of being inspired by the Classics of Art history ..."

9) "Do you think a thing like this could ever occur, that street art gets so much commercialized and capitalized it will be a rare thing to see on the streets?
- I am not seeing into the future yet, unfortunately. but I know that many artists go to the streets just for advertising and then disappearing in galleries when renown. It is a mistake, the basis being the streets. As soon as you disappear from the streets, you lose your basis and your best opportunity to continue to improve."

10) " How does having a master in art history support the ways of a modern street artists? Did this influence, or help you develop your own style?
- Studying Art history helps not to believe you're inventing something every morning, and at te same time, helps you to create real new things, by adapting elements or process from old masters and turning them new. This helps you to make real new things among your scene. the more distant and old are your references, the more original you will be. From another point, studying Art history helps you not to believe in the hype, and consider your work as a long term run and process. Becoming an artist takes a whole life, so don't believe you became one just because you got an interview in a trendy magazine. Being in a fashionable magazine means you'll soon be old-fashioned, not that you entered Art history..."

11) " How much of C215 is Christian Guemy? You seem not to mind that everyone knows who you are, and you do your things in broad daylight. Also quite the opposite of Banksy who is the main mystery man. Could you elaborate on that?
- I am completely ok to sign or present myself with my civil name, since I do not feel guilty at all for painting my stencils in the streets. Most of street artists take no risks and paste up posters or paint on legal walls but want to stay with hidden identity to excite the curiosity of the public. I have a complete different process and my goal is not to be hidden, but recognized as an artist instead of a vandal. I don't feel a rebel, but would love to contribute to a new revolution, and the new Renaissance could be one. The interest is to help people to build new social relationships together around self expression and art placed in the public spaces, and help them to stop consuming materialistic stuffs to enjoy free ones, non materialistic ones, as music or theater played in a public space or street art. "

12) "With the internet a lot of artists are not depending on traditional ways for their exposure anymore. Do you think the internet helps people rediscovering the value of things that are non-materialistic?
- You said everything I could answer in your question .. well done!"

13) "What is freedom to you?
- Freedom is doing what I want as long as I am respecting other people, if not doing something useful for them. So painting in the streets sounds perfect to me."

14) "You end a lot of your interviews with "stop consuming". Could you tell us a bit with what you want to say with this?"
- There's nothing to think about, since we have no choice if we want to leave something from this earth for our children..."


www.cfye.com/interviews/features/186-c215-wise-words

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Testimonials (15)

  • view profile

    howlinhill says:

    "Pure talent that is always an inspiration and a much needed breath of fresh air. Thank you C215."

    20th June, 2009

  • view profile

    runtoline says:

    "This guys skills seperate boys from men! No backchat!"

    24th February, 2009

  • view profile

    broken crow says:

    "Brilliant."

    29th October, 2008

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    Carmelo 61 says:

    "Ho conosciuto bene l'arte di strada nell'ultimo evento svolto a Bassano del Grappa, dove mi hanno colpito diversi lavori realizzati da vari artisti.
    C217 è uno di questi: la sua arte ti prende alla gola, come la tristezza, come la malinconia, come un futuro che non vedi."

    26th November, 2008

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    Hero Art says:

    "in my opinion he is the best stencil artist in the world

    H"

    31st October, 2008

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    Pétille says:

    "Quel plaisir de se laisser surprendre au coin d'une rue, dans un passage ! Et puis, ce besoin d'immortaliser ces oeuvres éphémères, de se les approprier à notre tour. Bravo !"

    10th September, 2008

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    mlgdesign says:

    "Your work is great. Urban art, totally exposed. I love your style. Congratulations."

    15th August, 2008

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    streetfilesss says:

    "absolut brilliant works. let it roll."

    16th July, 2008

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    F'kn Mayhem! says:

    "His attention to contrasting colors and unique style of cutting makes his works of art stand out among many of today's stencil artists."

    3rd June, 2008

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    Inspire Collective says:

    "He cuts it out and leaves only genius and beauty behind...
    An amazing artist..."

    11th April, 2008

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    Bruno Leyval says:

    "Un grand monsieur dont le talent est a l'ampleur du bonhomme ! BIG RESPECT !"

    3rd March, 2008

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    Velvet Fog says:

    "wonderful work. beautiful images. keep it up!"

    1st March, 2008

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    asboluv says:

    "..strong, beautiful designs..

    ..imaginative and clever placement..

    ..thoughtful and compassionate motive..

    ..stunning photographic record..

    ..enjoy.."

    5th February, 2008

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    BonusSaves says:

    "intimate stencils combined with stellar photography. A street artist to watch for!"

    26th January, 2008

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    Gaia Art says:

    "such an incredible stencil artist. really unique style"

    18th January, 2008

Joined:
July 2006
Hometown:
Paris
I am:
Male
Occupation:
Stencil artist
Website:
http://www.myspace.com/c215
Email:
christianguemy [at] yahoo.fr