Street Artists Turned Condemned Paris Tower into Sprawling Art Installation1

By Steve Wilson

Condemned apartments covered in spray paint2. spray paint: 喷漆。have probably never been in such demand. An entire apartment tower in eastern Paris has been turned over3. turn over: 移交，允许（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: 给……涂（盖）；debris:瓦砾堆，废墟。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，拆毁（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，干预；initiate: 发起，使开始。“I didn’t want the spectators7. spectator: 参观者，观众。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: 壁画；calligraphy: 书法；glow-in-the-dark: 在黑暗中发光的；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.

不是只有高雅才是艺术，不是只有永恒才是经典。平民化的街头艺术家，在即将拆迁的楼群内尽情挥洒自己的灵感和画技，让人们感受到街头涂鸦艺术的震撼力量。

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”的部分艺术家参加了2013年10月25日举办的历史上第一次当代城市艺术国际拍卖会，他们即兴创作的作品和凯斯·哈林、巴斯奇亚的作品一同展卖。unprecedented: 前所未有的，史无前例的； spur of the moment: 一时兴起的，即席的；Keith Haring: 凯斯·哈林，20世纪80年代的美国街头绘画艺术家；Basqiuat: 巴斯奇亚，美国艺术家。他先是以纽约涂鸦艺术家的身份获得大众的关注，后来成为一位成功的20世纪80年代的表现主义艺术家。

“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: （公共场所墙壁上的）涂鸦；document: v.（以书面或胶片的方式）记录。

“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: 巴黎德鲁奥拍卖行，位于法国巴黎，成立于1852年，是法国最大、最重要的拍卖行之一。. “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.”