“THE CREATIVE JOURNEYS BEHIND THE WORK“

“This is a piece of graffiti art by Gérard Zlotykamien, one of France’s pioneering street artists. But I think someone messed around drawing in the teeth, because they’re not really his style. I’ve always been interested in urban art. I consider it to be abstract art and just as worthy. If you think of it, the Lascaux caves were also that. I’ve always taken loads of photos of the graffiti I see in the streets of Paris, New York, Amsterdam, Venice–I have thousands of images. That’s how I found out about a lot of artists, and that’s how I got into it. And then there are the creative journeys behind the work. These aren’t ordinary people; they paint in the streets because they don’t have a choice – that’s all they have. I’ve always tried to help them as much as I could by buying, collecting and exhibiting their work. In La Fab., our gallery space in Paris’s 13th arrondissement, on Place Jean-Michel Basquiat – you couldn’t make it up, could you?–we’ve got a big graffiti exhibition on at the moment, especially of the work of Futura. I think his stuff is brilliant.”