THE WALL-ART OF PARIS

Something there is that doesn't love a blank wall in Paris. I don't know if it's the frustrated public artist in the Parisian, an abhorrence of a blank space, or just an addiction to eye candy of any and all kinds that is at the root of it. But on my meanderings around the city it seemed impossible to wander down a street without seeing something startling pop up on a wall.

There's the standard grungy grafitti:

. . . some of it in English. Alors.

Some of it quite striking:

Less imaginative but still intriguing is a kind of stencil art which appears mysteriously in nooks and crannies:

Or high on walls:

Or laid out like a kind of public gallery:

I never saw anyone actually putting up this, until one day I turned a corner and there was a kind of SWAT team of student artists working frantically to put up a street's worth of this stuff:

And then there is the soothing, pleasant shock of:

Or:

Or this Dali sundial high on a wall:
Or ephemera like this, which only comes out at night: