You have an atypical background. What made you become an artist ?

After my secondary school graduation in Science, I wanted to become an architect, but for financial reasons, I could not continue my studies. I started to make creations first out of passion, then I had the idea to show them and the success was immediate with several sales.

Why are you working on this little-used material that is paper?

I've had this passion for paper all my life. I remember my passion for origami as a child. When I grew up, it evolved. One of the things I had fun doing was carving paper with a scalpel during some boring classes.

How do you design a work ?

I always start from sketches I've made before. I start from the global form I want to create, then I'll work on the cut and the color. My work being very thorough, any mistake is fatal. There's no eraser to erase a cross-cut scalpel ! When I start a new work, I am so focused on the result, that I work there continuously, even if I have to spend a whole night there.

Precision and gesture are very important in my work. They have significantly improved over the years.

VIEW BENOIT PONSOLLE'S ARTWORKS →

Long-legged women, naked or in swimsuits rub shoulders with horsemen, butterflies and landscapes with clean lines. Simplicity and efficiency are this artist key words !

As a child, Jiri Havlik used to cover every piece of paper he could find with drawings. When the paper ran out, the family apartment walls were his playground. This led him to study gilding restoration at the High School of Uherské Hradiště in Moravia (Czech Republic) before embarking on “the artist life”.

He draws his inspiration from his walks in the countryside or in the unknown cities he visits. Sometimes he even wakes up at night — an idea that crossed his mind- and suddenly he imagines a new creation. To this end, he keeps a notebook beside his bed so that he can make a quick sketch before going back to sleep.

In his work, he does not plan anything in advance. The subject he is going to paint always appears under his hand spontaneously. He is even sometimes very surprised by the result as if he was not really the author. For his creations, he often uses his old drawings and sketches-which were sometimes drawn 5 or 20 years ago ! He particularly likes to mix techniques and materials (pencil, ink, gouache, collages, metal, photography, lino engraving, dry tip...), and if the result does not satisfy him, he does not hesitate to destroy the work he has just made.

Since the dawn of time, women have inspired sculpture, painting, theatre and, more recently, cinema. Jiri Havlik, like many other artists before him, is a fervent admirer of women beauty and mystery. This is why it is a favourite theme in his work.

Due to the simplicity, style and purity of the lines,  his paintings and drawings reveal part of woman beauty and hidden mysteries. For the part that's definitely hidden, it's up to you to find out.

VIEW JIRI HAVLIK'S ARTWORKS →

Very close to the beautiful city of Saumur, on the banks of the Loire, it is a forest unlike any other. Let's meet a different artist.

My gaze was drawn by strange white traces on tree trunks. I was getting closer, and these tracks turned into a rabbit. I continued My Journey and fell face to face with a young woman drawing with chalk.

Tout près de la belle ville de Saumur, sur les bords de la Loire, il est une forêt pas comme les autres. Partons à la rencontre d’une artiste différente.

Mon regard fut attiré par d’étranges traces blanches sur des troncs d’arbres. Je m’approchais, et ces traces se transformèrent en un lapin. Je continuai mon chemin et je tombais nez à nez avec une jeune femme en train de dessiner à la craie.

I was getting closer and closer. Her name was Sekhmet-an Egyptian goddess in the forests of Anjou ! In front of my astonished gaze, she said to me : “Sekhmet, she is the dualistic goddess par excellence, destructive and creative. In a way, a bit like all of us." I continued to walk with her, and I discovered at every “corner of the way” new achievements.

For La petite (or grande) histoire, it was after various formations that she decided to embark on photography — the only way in her eyes to give full life to her inner world. The discovery of land art and artist Nils Udo will trigger its vocation. And from the summer of 2015, the forests of her childhood will begin to populate with her paintings (made from biodegradable materials-chalk or lime). The land art tells me-it is the right thing to do, the work is born, lives and dies, like us humans.

Je m’approchais et fis connaissance. Elle s’appelait Sekhmet — une déesse égyptienne dans les forêts d’Anjou ! Face à mon regard interloqué, elle me dit : “Sekhmet, c’est la déesse dualiste par excellence, destructrice et créatrice. D’une certaine manière un peu comme nous tous”. Je continuais à marcher avec elle, et je découvrais à chaque “coin de chemin” de nouvelles réalisations.

Pour la petite (ou grande) histoire, c’est après différentes formations qu’elle décida de se lancer dans la photographie — seul moyen à ses yeux de donner pleinement vie à son monde intérieur. La découverte du land art et de l’artiste Nils Udo vont déclencher sa vocation. Et à partir de l’été 2015, les forêts de son enfance vont commencer à se peupler de ses peintures (réalisés à partir de matériaux biodégradables — craie ou chaux). Le land art me dit-elle est le juste court des choses, l’oeuvre naît, vit et meurt, tel nous autres humains.

As we continued, We came to a meadow. Sekhmet began to draw a horse based on Lime and fire paste and then set fire to his mane and hooves. The night began to fall, we slowly came out of the undergrowth and she told me about her other achievements in brownfields mixing street art, anamorphosis and light painting.

It is at the end of our meeting that she tells me these words which have profoundly marked me : “there is beauty in everything, it is enough to take the time to observe it and sometimes to place oneself according to the point of view adapted to perceive it. That's why I'm attracted to anamorphosis.

En continuant, nous arrivâmes dans une prairie. Sekhmet commença à dessiner un cheval à base de chaux et de pâte à feu puis mit le feu à sa crinière et à ses sabots. La nuit commençant à tomber, nous sortîmes lentement du sous-bois et elle me parla de ses autres réalisations dans des friches industrielles mélangeant street art, anamorphose et light painting.

C’est à la fin de notre rencontre qu’elle me dit ces paroles qui m’ont profondément marqué : “Il y a de la beauté en toute chose, il suffit de prendre le temps de l’observer et de parfois se placer selon le point de vue adapté pour la percevoir. D’où mon attirance pour l’anamorphose.

As in life, sometimes we don't see things until we're on the right track. Kind of hide-and-seek that we play without realizing it with the world. Sometimes it is enough to change your point of view to finally capture the image.”

Comme dans la vie, parfois l’on ne perçoit pas les choses tant que nous ne nous trouvons pas dans le bon axe. Sorte de cache-cache que nous jouons sans nous en rendre compte avec le monde. Il suffit parfois de changer de point de vue pour saisir enfin l’image.”

How does Sekhmet carry out its anamorphosis?

She doesn't usually know what she's going to achieve until she finds the place. It's like trees or walls call for a certain image. When she finds the place, the image imposes itself on her. She sees the work ends before it begins. Only then she does the preparatory work of drawing to approach the final image that she has the mind. She creates her image on the computer using a graphic tablet and image processing software. The resulting file is then used for projection. With the help of a video projector she will sketch the contours necessary for the realization of the painting. So she only paints at night and she does the alterations during the day.

Comment Sekhmet réalise-t-elle ses anamorphoses?

En général elle ne sait pas ce qu’elle va réaliser avant d’avoir trouvé le lieu. C’est comme si les arbres ou les murs appelaient à une certaine image. Lorsqu’elle trouve le lieu, l’image s’impose à elle. Elle voit l’oeuvre finit avant d’avoir commencé. Ensuite seulement elle fait le travail préparatoire du dessin pour s’approcher de l’image finale qu’elle a l’esprit. Elle réalise son image sur l’ordinateur à l’aide d’une tablette graphique et d’un logiciel de travail de l’image. Le fichier obtenu lui sert ensuite pour la projection. À l’aide d’un vidéoprojecteur elle va ébaucher les contours nécessaires à la réalisation de la peinture. De ce fait elle peint uniquement de nuit et elle fait les retouches le jour.

VOIR LE TRAVAIL DE SEKHMET →

Mr. Strange, the aptly named

In the world of Mr. Strange, the coelacanth becomes Sheila Kant, ... and animals of all kinds ask metaphysical questions: the cat above the clouds, the monkey that remains at the end of a show, etc...

The unusual is obvious, and it is unclear what guided the artist: the desire to make clash of visuals or the undisguised pleasure of illustrating a word game, an expression, to show that the absurd nests everywhere, in the lived, the words or the images.

"I like to try to show that the world is not what we think it is, to decipher the artificial and puppetesque effervescence to expose human society, this puppet show where everyone plays their part by avoiding (but that's unconscious) to live his true life! I am attracted by the unusual, the bizarre and the nonsense. But pure provocation does not appeal to me".

Logically, the artist goes to the end and also sows trouble on the technique used: photo? painting? digital editing? All three at once! The artist imagines the scene from photos found on Google images, makes a digital montage to obtain a photo. "My challenge is mixing these images that have no connection between them. And who finally, once associated, create a new reality and open new doors ".

Behind the pseudonym of Mr Strange, a 50-year-old from Montpellier: "Art has always accompanied me, even though I have chosen my gift for sport very early on. I was a good tennis player in my youth and this activity became my job. I am a tennis teacher in the Hérault. But in high school, I had a course oriented towards the history of art and drawing.

I started very early to draw. Between 8 and 12 years, poetry .... Comics between 10 and 16 years old. Between 17 and 30 years old, I started painting with oil and modeling (Di Rosa and Combas style). Then I went through a long time without creation. About ten years ago, the creative volcano woke up. I started what I called "spicture", a mix of painting and sculpture. Relief paint using clay and acrylic.

Mr. Strange's work has found an unexpected extension. "I met a few years ago on the Internet from a Chinese, Qihai Chen. He had cracked on my photographic work and had proposed to reproduce one, L'Homme Penché, which knows a certain success on ARTMAJEUR. Since then, it has become my partner, taking up the challenge of transforming digital work into oil painting on canvas ". Text: A.D

Browse Mr Strange's works →

The bodies are beautiful, and they are naked. But facing the light, facing the autumnal nature, facing the monuments that emerge, these bodies laid bare are only a vain counterpoint to the fighting that may have taken place in these places. The bodies are only there to emphasize the gap between beauty and what is hidden. The human nature is perhaps beautiful, it is above all a great fragility.

While we are just leaving commemorations of the Great War, this is an inconvenient work, which shows that the day after the conflict or a hundred years later, the war will always be pregnant ... If we must not forget it is also because it gives an incomparable strength of life, and the artist Julien Sunyé is undoubtedly one of the best placed to say it.

"Every year we celebrate peace, but we are still at war." Through 24 European destinations (in Spain, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Belgium), the photographer Julien Sunyé evokes the

traumas of the conflicts that are crossed, those that are ignored or those that are ignored by denial. Black Holes, the artist in conflict violence, who are opposed or opposed today, in the world: "The emotions that cross us origins in childhood. It takes time, attention and real work on oneself to understand and analyze. But modern life leaves little room for this inner quest. Finally, show your pains, learn to overcome, to make peace with what it is to live and to create a harmonious future for oneself and others ".

A series that evokes universal historical themes, but which can obviously refer to many more personal elements. And Julien Sunyé knows something, he who worked in finance before diving in 2013 in a severe depression whose causes escape him. It prevents him from working, from being able to express his emotions and thus from continuing to live. Seeking to cope, Julien Sunyé is interested in different forms of trauma. He learns that childhood trauma is deeply embedded in the subconscious and can define the present. The person then becomes a prisoner of his past.

During the summer of 2016, the photographer decided to go to the battlefields of Verdun. He is struck by the idea that the past can lock up an individual but also an entire people. Soothed by the photographic work that led his way to several countries in Europe on "sensitive or historical" sites, Julien Sunyé feels that he is in the right place to lead his reflection.

Each new photographic session helps him overcome his depression a little more until he finally manages to recover in September 2018.

Born in Amsterdam in 1982, Julien Sunyé begins street photography in Paris. This Franco-Dutchman (French by his father and Dutch by his mother) found his inspirations as much in the work of Henri Cartier Bresson as in the Dutch painters of the 16th and 17th centuries. At the same time the humanism of the French photographer, and the intimacy of the Dutch painters. Text: A.D

BROWSE JULIEN SUNYÉ'S WORKS  →

In September 2014, Canadian radio CBC presented a young artist who claimed to be the inventor of a revolutionary art, the invisible art. She was describing a work she had worked on for hours, but that could not be seen. It was a hoax.

What the authors of this farce could not imagine was that many invisible art initiatives had already been experimented by artists like Duchamp, Magritte or Warhol.

In June 2011, the artist duo Praxis sponsored by comedian James Franco launched the "Non-Visible Museum" or MONA, "an eccentricity of imagination, a museum that reminds us that we live in two worlds: the physical world of sight and the non-visible world of thought.Completely made up of ideas and sniffing at the art market, the works will simply be described to visitors ... "

More generally, the promoters of the invisible art postulate that art is not limited to physical achievements to see or to possess.

Works inaccessible, hidden, invisible or to disappear to keep only the memory, would be equally able to provide artistic emotions.

To evoke a work disappeared or invisible to the naked eye, would make it revive a posteriori.

These very conceptual artistic orientations are based on the rejection of the mercantile and speculative turn of contemporary art.

On the other side of the coin, promoting the artistic emotion of a work that is not seen or touched, and focusing on narrative or story telling, could disqualify this approach.

The incredulous spectator, prevented from making his own judgment by exercising all his senses, would be reduced to believing "the artist" on his word ...

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Socialter defines creativity as "the Grail of the 21st century" and the World Economic Forum places it at the heart of the four key competencies of our time with critical thinking, the art of communicating and collaborating. Essential to the survival and development of the company, it is essential to promote and integrate it into the corporate culture.

What is creativity?

It is the ability of a person or group of people to design and implement a new concept, a new object or to discover an original solution to a problem. Creativity is at the origin of invention (when used for a product or service) and innovation (when this invention applies to a market).

Are we all creative?

In the collective unconscious, creativity appears as the prerogative of some solitary geniuses, often cursed, endowed with innate gifts and disconcerting facilities. In reality, each person has a creative potential often under-exploited or constrained by conformism, pessimism, fear of failure, family or social judgment, education.

What are the characteristics of the creative people it is up to us to develop?

- self-esteem in any event;

- determination, commitment and perseverance at all times;

- an unlimited curiosity to embrace all fields of knowledge, observation or the human condition;

- high speed of information processing of any kind associated with a taste for complexity;

- a flash resolution of problems associated with an almost automatic generation of ideas;

- an ability to imagine other worlds, other systems, other logics.

The thought of a creative is both:

- analogue (linked to the free association of ideas and images coming from different and often compartmentalized universes),

- divergent (original, fluid and flexible),

- original: free from gender stereotypes,

-deconcerting: capable of operating radical reversals.

The great enemies of the creative are fatigue and stress, the search for perfection, specialization, the "academic" spirit, the routine and the lack of openness to the world.

Creating something that has never existed requires enthusiasm, experimentation and a detachment of knowledge and the past. It's an open, free-spirited attitude that feeds on everything and is driven by challenges.

How to become more creative?

Many exercises that promote idea generation and problem solving exist. Nevertheless, developing a creative mindset is the key for those who wish to exploit their creative potential, namely:

- absorb everything and be open to new experiences to find inspiration and promote the analog process;

- constantly ask questions to deepen your knowledge;

- to think like a child, to free oneself from schemas, constraints and forbidden, to move away from reason;

- to question and reconsider the gains;

- hear all points of view to develop new paths and new interactions;

- alternate creative phase and mental rest phase;

- make sleep his ally to develop the unconscious thought;

- take a distance on things to implement the imagination;

- develop one's sense of humor, have wit;

- take risks, consider failures as a way to progress and develop boundless determination;

- never censor ideas;

- develop the fun aspect of creation by moving from cock to donkey, associating, taking the opposite, playing the paradox.

Even if the great creations are generally the fact of an individual connected to his desires, his thoughts, his inner challenges, the innovation is often a collective act, the fruit of a creativity and an original action of team. Theoretically, the creativity of a group of individuals together should have infinitely greater potential than that of an isolated person. In practice, the optimization of "collective intelligence" involves creating the conditions for group creativity and setting up the organization that allows the individual creative process to be replicated at the team level.

Different approaches such as design thinking promote the spread of the culture of creativity in the company and the organization of the different stages of preparation, incubation, generation of solutions and validation. In business, creative improvisation with decision and immediate implementation does not exist. On the other hand, the respect of the different creative stages can allow the emergence of complementarities and a creative team spirit that will allow to interiorize the creative process and accelerate the group innovation.

To remain competitive and foster innovation, one of the means to remove the resistance to change of employees (seeing no personal interest, considering not having the required skills or feeling threatened by the unknown) is to set up a culture of creativity applied in the rules of the art.

By restoring trust, enhancing value, by collaborating on joint projects in which everyone contributes, by making a difference in the collective fruits, the company will gain in flexibility, adhesion and dynamism, essential in an open economy more and more globalized before meet increasingly individualized needs.

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Art, a mode of expression of a subjectivity, seems at first sight disconnected from the notions of organization, profit or profitability and rational management methods used in the management of a company.

Art, an individual activity, irrational, out of context and sensitive, generally arouses the skepticism of management and the mistrust of employees seeking "validating" technical training. It is these same well-established patterns that favor management and technology over human sciences and artistic disciplines. However, art and management have every interest in crossing each other to enrich each other.

The company has a lot to learn from the artistic process, in particular:

- the quest for meaning: the artistic process conveys values and carries a particular mission;

- project management: each work, composition or realization, requires a real project management;

- the mastery of the techniques of realization: without control of the basic techniques brought to evolve with the experimentation and the artistic approach towards personal and original techniques, the art does not exist (the artist must be an outstanding technician doubled a technical innovator);

- an iterative process: the artist constantly interacts with the work in progress, making the necessary adjustments to achieve the desired result;

- an approach of originality and creativity: what distinguishes the artist from the craftsman is this creative ability, this search for novelty. We speak of "performance" or artistic originality;

- a humanist approach: at the same time, a personal vision of the world and an uncompromising look at reality, art expresses in a particular aesthetic form the world around us;

- total risk taking: there is no certainty that the work is well received by the market;

- a highly competitive art market: art has no borders, competition is global. The artist, guided by a personal approach that has no commercial intention, is confronted with the hypercompetition and the material necessity of creating his market and building up his base of customers and users;

- A work of art is above all a "sensitive user experience" (emotion, wonder, energy). The artist must maximize this experience by facilitating the accessibility of his art if he wants to sell his work;

- an individual creation that inserts itself and interacts with its environment and society;

- a process of expression and personal realization.

The modern manager who wants to foster collaboration and creativity has every interest in developing his own creative potential and immersing himself in artistic processes in order to facilitate group creativity. Individual creativity is a state of mind that can be stimulated (exhibition visits, open courses, creativity workshops ...). Creation processes can be learned through contact with artists (artistic interventions in the company, visits to workshops, conferences, etc.).

The artist has a lot to learn from the manager.

Recently, the concept of artist-entrepreneur, an artist managing his artistic work as a business, has appeared. In an ultra-competitive market, the artist can be brought to disseminate his works to build an identity, a brand, to invent new communication and sales methods, to develop a range of products derived from the original production adapted to his market. Some artists produce works "ready to hang", more affordable, allowing them to cope with the costs of producing more ambitious works. This approach criticized by some purists is not necessarily a brake on originality or creativity. If the artist does not resign himself to producing "what works", but develops accessible artistic concepts of tomorrow. To have financial resources linked to the sale of his works is the goal and the dream of every artist, but also his greatest source of freedom and innovation.

Obviously, in a world that requires more and more flexibility, openness, originality and efficiency, these two approaches, artistic and managerial, are called to nourish each other to give birth to a creative management and organized arts activities.

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A very good article of the journalist Audrey Chabal on Artmajeur currently makes the home page of Forbes, to be found on the following link:
https://www.forbes.fr/entrepreneurs/art-majeur-democratise-achat-art-grace-a-internet/

Interview TV at our offices in Montpellier - France 3 reportage by J.Escafre / F.Jobard / F.Alibert

The first Aboriginal rock paintings date back to the dawn of time (more than 50,000 years ago), much earlier than those found in Europe. First forms of known art, perpetuated on their original support (rock, sand ...) until twenty years ago then with modern techniques (canvas, acrylic ...), are now threatened with extinction.

Aboriginal art is both a sacred art and a ritual art used in initiation ceremonies. These representations evoke the Dream Time, the time of supernatural beings that have arisen from the earth, traveled and created the world and living beings. The space sacred time, space parallel to ours always pre-exists. Only initiates can come into contact with him during ritual ceremonies.

At the time of the creation of the world, these fantastic beings left traces in the landscape. The paintings are a kind of narrative and symbolic cartography which revive their work of creation of the world. By linking the two worlds, activating and diffusing the vital energy of the great ancestors, they allow life to perpetuate itself and the world not to disappear. Basically, the great Aboriginal artists are painting to ensure the survival of their community and more broadly of the world! Aboriginal art is a collective spiritual art with a naturalistic, figurative or geometric style.

The "aboriginal artistic movement" itself was born in the 1970s under the impetus of an English teacher Geoffrey Bardon who pushed the students of the community of Papunya (center of Australia) to reproduce on walls, panels or canvas the motifs of the Dream Time. According to the critic Robert Hughes, the last great pictorial artistic movement of the XXth century was born ... The sacred representations bearing power and history being reserved for the initiated, different techniques (such as pointillism) were used by the artists to preserve their secret character and show only the secular part. Success was such that Aboriginal art sales peaked at $ 200 million per year in the years 1990-2000. After having been ignored for a long time, this commercial success made it possible for the aboriginal communities to reconstitute themselves and to disseminate their millenary culture to the world in a suitable form.

Considered to be the legacy of an endangered civilization, this art was categorized by the art market as "ancient, ethnographic art", and progressively confined to stereotypes, techniques and standardized motifs giving the lead to "historical" artists and leaving little room for a more contemporary creation. Few merchants supporting young artists, the great initiates who bear the millennial pictorial tradition disappearing without transmitting their art, the vitality and the renewal of aboriginal art is seriously in danger. All the more the aboriginal communities, struggling for lack of means to assume both a role of social and artistic support, are threatened with regrouping near major cities by the regional governments.

Ancient rock art is also in danger, threatened by urban development, mining, erosion, and vandalism. 50% of the rock art could disappear within forty years if not soon protected. The support of some international museums such as the Musée du Quai Branly can not replace that of local authorities, which are struggling to recognize, preserve and support the identity, culture and art of the natives of the terra nullus "(a land which belongs to no one" according to the 1770 declaration of James Cook, one of the discoverers of Australia), yet an essential component of Australian identity.

Beyond this, without mobilization, what constitutes the heritage of mankind could eventually be reduced to a digital database of missing petroglyphs and paintings produced for the layman, truncated with their original sacred motifs, which would sign the end of Australian Aboriginal art.

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Sixty years after its launch, pop art, one of the main cultural movements of the twentieth century, has gone through time and societal evolutions, well above all the trends.  Fed and likened to the popular culture, it transformed radically the whole artistic chain.

Popular art or pop art asserted itself by taking the opposite stance to the abstract expressionism (action painting by Jackson Pollock, colorful painting by Mark Rothko ...), too academic, too technical and too esoteric.

The themes were inspired by popular culture, its images, its advertising or drawing techniques. The ordinary consumption goods, treated with a touch of irony, conveying their forceful images to the public. The reproduction, duplication, superposition, combination of the popular iconography, enhanced with pure and vivid colors or geometric shapes were supposed to reflect the chaos produced by television, media, advertising, fashion, pop music, ...

Free from all conventions, pop art will revolutionize art. From the design of it, to its production, even by the way it is promoted.

• The idea, the powerful expression (style) of the work will be considered more important than the work itself. Its production, often using materials of industrial origin (acrylic, screen printing ...) will not require a lot of technicality. The workshop will become a factory, so dear to Andy Warhol.

• Reproduction and mass production will upset the traditional uniqueness of the work.

• The generally black-colored line contrasting with the clear line of the advertising or comic strip, is embellished with colors with no gradient effects that attract the eye and give more impact to the image.

• The use of symbols and popular images will desecrate the work of art.

• Happenings and environments will play an important role in the promotion and sale of this "ready to eat" art form.

Art in search of simplicity and efficiency, trying to make big impression thanks to its techniques and popular inspirations. Pop art has in turn enriched and stylized popular imagery.

It will strongly influence the generations of artists: from conceptual art, to graffiti artists or urban artists such as Basquiat or Keith Harring, the neo-pop (Morimura And the kitsch artist Jeff Koons) to vintage, graphic design and web design ...

Turning out to be particularly accurate in a digital world where the image, the immediate, the short-lived, the simple and clear, the hard-hitting prevail, its by-products became simple objects of consumption bought instinctively…How ironic! Pop art has literally melted into popular culture.

If its technical and esthetic qualities are debatable with regards to the realizations of great masters such as Velazquez, Monet or Picasso, its artists always reach millions in auctions. Its stylistic innovations used in numerous creative domains (advertising, design) are still powerful. Part of the collective cultural imagination, its visionary and opportunistic artistic approach is undoubtedly ranking first in the history of art and the culture.

Born in the United States in the 1970s, street art regroups works (images, visual signatures) created in the street, other than graffiti style writing (signatures).

Recently legitimized by the art market, it has a strong public enthusiasm, echoed by digital technologies.

Street art is an ephemeral and unsolicited art, assimilated to vandalism, inscribed on the walls, façades of buildings of the urban area. Sticking to the evolutions of contemporary society, playful or aesthetic, it aims to be seen by the crowd in order to provoke, testify or embellish its everyday life.

Street artists use different techniques:

- graffiti: aerosol bombs projecting colored and indelible painting;

-stencil: cardboard, metal sheets or cut-out x-rays reproducing patterns or figures on which painting is "bulged";

- sticker;

- "yarn bombing" or technique of knitting: multiple yarns of wool of different colors;

- tape art: adhesive tapes (brown tape art), or canvas and waterproof used by masons (duct tape art);

- three-dimensional "street installations" designed to be moved and not "damaging" the public space.

This popular art, exposed to all winds, with a vocation of identity, protest and aesthetics, has since a while entered galleries and private collections. Some of Jean-Michel Basquiat's and Bansky's achievements were simply torn from their original urban location to be auctioned off.

Many "street artists” seeking a longevity and a remuneration for their work helped produce a derivative production," living room "works inspired by their originally urban work. Even these pieces are deprived of original street art characteristics (ephemeral, in situ, free ), more and more amateurs are attracted by big names of the urban counterculture.

It is clear that information technologies (mobile and digital internet), promoting a culture of image, ephemeral, instantaneous, are powerful tools for disseminating and preserving the works of street artists. Online communities of amateur have been formed providing an audience that surpasses that of physical space.

Everyone being focused on their smartphone rather than on urban space, it is likely that in the future street artists will create directly on digital support for a digital public. 

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Art brut or Raw art is an artistic genre increasingly valued for its singularity, its inventiveness and its emotional impact.

Defined in 1945 by Jean Dubuffet as a simple and natural art, executed by non-professionals, having neither artistic culture nor pretension or cultural approach, it is a spontaneous, impulsive art, giving way to invention, techniques and non-academic materials.

Like Paul Klee or André Breton, a surrealist writer looking for inconscious creation, Jean Dubuffet began collecting what was called "the art of the fools" in the 1920s. He subsequently broadened the specter of raw art to all forms of spontaneous creation, realized by mediums, marginalized, prisoners or the excluded to the ... "men of the common", outside artistic circuits.

Rough art is a vital, inner expression, devoid of any cultural purpose, communication or commerce.

"Art uncultivated, arising from a gift of nature, devoid of any relation to the artistic field " according to Pierre Bourdieu, this art disturbs.

Often repetitive, obsessive or even complex, it joins the approach of some artists obsessively exploring the same artistic problematic.

Away from the history of art, it has existed since the dawn of time.

Not altered by the standards of adult life, cultural conditioning or conformation to the rules of cultural art, it is an act of pure creation. By referring to the creative impulse as an expression of the mystery of existence, raw art is reaching a wide audience.

Jean Dubuffet thought that raw art should escape the market because it existed autonomously.

In the 1970s, a similar movement called « Outsider art » emerged, highlighting marginal, self-taught creators who conceived their work in solitude and outside the artistic milieu. Many raw artists saw their market value flying, art brut became paradoxically a dynamic component of the art market ...

However, the legitimation of this artistic genre has opened the art market to non-professionals, self-taught artists painting with their guts and their soul.

The universal nature of these creations being appreciated by an increasingly wide audience, a greater official recognition of these original artworks could revivify the official sclerotic art.

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The CoBrA movement (for Copenhagen-Brussels-Amsterdam), lasting from 1948 to 1951, is one of the most important post-war avant-garde movements.

Composed of Danish (Asger Jorn), Dutch (Appel Karel) and Belgian painters (Corneille, Pierre Alechinsky) and Belgian surrealist poets (Christian Dotremont and Joseph Noiret), this international movement has liberated artistic expression by overtaking the traditional opposition between figurative and abstract expression.

Eager to meet the authenticity and deep nature of human beings, sensitive to the primitive expressions free from theories, norms, and conventions, such as naive art, prehistoric art, medieval popular art, children’s art, CoBrA artists have restored spontaneity, energy, bright colors and original shapes in art.

The CoBrA movement intended to return to the original purity of Art.

After drawing irrational shapes, they were nervously painting bright colors which reflected the energy and the instinctive action of the artist. Shapes were literally flamed by colors.

As a result, their works seemed either barbaric because, according to Karel Appel,"they took place in a barbaric epoch", or childish because they were searching the childhood of art.

CoBrA artists were looking for a universal expression through experimentation, spontaneous creation, and liberation of forms and colors.

This was a return to a less reflective and playful art as if art was a feast.

Since art was no longer a business of technicians or professionals, since hierarchies or "artistic" complexes have disappeared, art became again popular, available to all.

Undoubtedly Cobra artists have developed a powerful expressive experimental language (using either drawing, sculpture, wood, earth, metal, words, sounds or writing).

Cleared from complexes, judgments, and conventions, this pure art liberated the creative energies of our deep nature, contributing to our fulfillment.

"Returning to the childhood of art by recovering our childlike soul is the timeless message of the CoBrA manifesto, at a time when aesthetic and intimate art is overwhelmed by a spectacular and decorative art.

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African art is always confined to its "first art" component. The most recent exhibitions made Picasso and his contemporaries interact with statues or reliquaries, but never ever with African artists of their time ... It is as if contemporary African artists were not recognized as having any quality, influence or value in this highly strategic financial and cultural market.

However, as early as the 1930s, the first penetrations of European techniques and models into the African visual arts led to a first local awakening (known as "indigenous art").

In 1951, Pierre Lods created a painting workshop in Brazzaville. He does not impose any artistic rules on his pupils, asking them to give free rein to their creativity, spontaneity and tradition. The school of “Poto Poto”, one of the first artistic schools on the African continent, was born. The style Miké (colorful slender characters) will spread to all Africa.

Following the independence of Congo in 1960, Pierre Lods was called to Senegal by President Senghor to create, alongside Ida Ndiaye (one of the first great African artists known for his Tabaskis series) what will be called the “School Of Dakar”. Each student is introduced to the latest western artistic techniques, allowing him to explore new paths on new media that were not used because they were too expensive. The pupils of Iba Ndiaye, on one hand, will follow in the footsteps of the conceptual or abstract art. While those of Pierre Lods, will concentrate on the figuration of their traditions, dear to the poet and singer of the negritude President Senghor. These modern artists, Amadou BA, Amadou Seck, Diatta Seck, Chérif Thiam, Philippe Sène ... seen and praised by none less than Picasso, Soulages or Chagall, will constitute the prodigious pioneers of modern African art, still neglected today. They created the first African art “golden age”, thanks to the commitment of a president in love with arts and culture (30% of the state budget will be devoted to them!).

Collecting works of art is a rare practice in Africa (objects originally having a ritual or sacred function), promotional structures and museums having scarce means, the status of artist in Africa proves to be very complicated. Strong figures, supported by some patrons, nevertheless emerge: the Senegalese Ousmane Sow or Amadou Seck, Ghanaian El Anatsui, Congolese Chéri Samba, photographer Malick Sdibé, potter Seni Camara of South Africa Irma Stern and William Kentridge, Ethiopian-American Julie Mehretu, among others.

Various individual initiatives will emerge, such as the Pigozzi, Zinsu or Blachère Foundations, accumulating works by hundreds, to be displayed and valued.

For the past two or three years, it has become clear that there is a real media shudder and an early structuring of the modern and contemporary African art market.

Admittedly, it is a plural art that is very original and authentic because of its forms, its choice of colors, its often natural supports, its traditional and contemporary inspirations. From these works emerges a lot of vitality, humanity, rhythm and strength. Untouched by the trend effects and the decorative and mercantile inclinations of a western art that is still in the seeking, the African art revivifies, renews and gives a new breath to contemporary art.

Since 2013, a Contemporary African Art Fair called "1: 54" (1 continent, 54 countries) is organized in London, and recently in New York. The first edition of its French competitor AKAA (Also Known As Africa) took place at the end of 2016. South Africa is very active with the Joburg Art Fair and the Cape Town Art Fair.

An Africa Art Market Report has been published in 2015 which gives valuable benchmarks in terms of analysis of the contemporary and modern African art market. It also reveals that it is very much under-exploited and under-animated, with the notable exception of South Africa and of a few mainly western collectors.

As the economies of the African continent are growing, many modern and contemporary artists of high quality, as welle as local collectors are expected to emerge. The African art market is set to grow.

Let us hope that, after being denied for a long time, it will escape the speculative fever that the Chinese market has experienced. Wishing that it will develop in a long-term perspective and re-appropriation by local actors and collectors of their cultural and artistic heritage.

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Arte Povera was born in Italy in the late 1960s in response to the American way of life, and to the consumerist art such as pop art, characterized by overbidding, spectacular and overwhelming media-ism.

This group of artists, originating from the industrial city of Turin, were marked by social conflicts and the mercantilism of the art market. What prevails in their artistic expression is the natural, the instinct and the ephemeral.

According to the Italian art critic Germano Celant at the origin of the term, Arte povera is "an hymn to the elementary element, to the banal element, to nature, to man, fragment of spirit and body ".

Social and political manifesto, it is more an attitude, a behavior, a discipline rather than a movement, namely:

- a way of being and creating, giving priority to gesture, the creative process to the detriment of the finished object;

- a refusal to consider art as a product that can be appropriated and sacralized;

- a simple, even archaic, implementation of so-called "poor, rough, crude, natural materials (wood, coal, stones ...), often made of recovered objects ;

- the exhibition space is part of the installation;

- a poetic dimension and even a spiritual materialism forcing us to think about the mysteries of existence.

Frugal art, art of recovery or harvest, it is an essential expression, anchored in the real, with symbolic and poetic scope.

Artists of Arte povera go beyond the limits of sculpture or painting, beyond the framework, in order to exalt the real and develop a radical visual language. Numerous experiments in poor art will be carried out in other disciplines such as architecture ("Global tools", a counter-school of architecture and design rethinking social space in an ecological context), dance, cinema or music.

Arte Povera, originally an artistic guerrilla, based on a formal radicalism and an economy of means, has never been so timely.

Far from being a moment of cultural regression, it finds today many resonances and extensions in different non-ostentatious forms of art, anchored either in reality or in nature (art of the World, ecological art ...) which meat an increasingly public membership.

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The widespread use of digital technologies in the entertainment industry (video games, animated films, special effects) has resulted in the production of numerous high-quality computer-assisted creations.

The digital creation, however, suffers from a lack of recognition as it is discredited by the purists who only believe in the use of pencils, paints and physical supports. They consider with a dim eye, the technical assistance of a machine

The first legitimation of this new art is by David Hockney, the great master of oil painting and a visionary artist. He uses digital technologies since 2009 and exhibits his creations in the most important museum across the world.

Admittedly, digital art can take different forms such as:

-the 3D or "three-dimensional" is a computer-aided design technique allowing the representation of objects by volume on a screen, widely used in the animation industry.

-digital imaging is the production of synthetic images from a digital space.

-the digital sculpture corresponds to a sculpture digitized in three dimensions.

- digital painting: the image is created on a white screen using a graphic palette or a digital pen.

Digital tools offer endless creatively capacities (infinity of colors and gradients, dimensional effects, multiple forms), make it possible to overcome certain technical shortcomings and release the constraints linked to a linear creative process (possibility of undoing and redoing creations endlessly).

It is important to emphasize that, despite the wide range of possibilities, these techniques do not “create” talent. It is just as difficult to draw on a palette with a graphic pen as it is with a brush on a canvas. Without the creativity, dexterity and imagination of those who use them, these tools remain ineffective.

How can this digital art expose itself?

There are many artists' sites as well as digital galleries where to visualize these creations. In a way, the major art platforms offer a digital version of traditional art forms. The virtual reality platform DIMoDa for «Digital Museum of digital art» brings together digital works that can be appreciated with a virtual reality accent.

The high quality output of digital works is already possible with:

- digital printing or "digigraphy" (printing 11 colors on "Fine art" papers);

- 3D printing for 3D sculpture and painting.

In the future, the combination of digital creation and 3D printing (known as 3D digital art) will satisfy art lovers attached to physical media and material effects.

Digital art is definitely on the move.

Very affordable, offering infinite execution capacities, it allows accessibility to the creation, making it visible and printable in all places.

Will Digital art be an additional artistic medium? Will it replace the traditional mediums? We will get some clue, in the very near future.

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Born in the United States in the late 1960s in reaction to the established order, museum institutions, the mercantile and elitist character of art, Land art refers to all artistic currents that use Nature as a place, a material and an inscription surface for their work.

There are generally two types of artistic interventions:

-large inscriptions at the scale of the landscape. Like the geoglyphs of Nazca, the pioneers of Land Art such as Robert Smithson realized in the American desert west "earthworks" or monumental excavations inscribed in the landscape;

- human scale works made from natural materials (earth, stones, mud, branches, ...).

While the former are destined to last, even if they are eroded by the elements, the latter are destined to be ephemeral by degrading or decomposing themselves naturally.

Since these artistic enterprises are made in inaccessible places, the photographic support has become indispensable, attesting or being part of the work.

In many respects, Land Art has taken the opposite view of the traditional forms of art:

- the original work was no longer realized in a workshop, no longer transportable or exposable and could not be held. It was carried out in situ, far from public view.

- the work was no longer a representation of the Nature, but part of the Nature. It was no longer definitive, evolving with climatic conditions and natural hazards.

-the work and its creator were no longer eternal.

For nearly fifty years, Land Art has undergone many changes that have challenged some of its initial claims.

It has become transposable and exposable. It has re-entered the museum space through facilities (South Bank circle of Richard Long for example) and has joined the largest private collections. It has experienced various extensions such as plant art or "art in nature", « earth art » or « ecological art ».

Thanks to Land Art, nature and art, originally a human attempt to imitate or transcend natural creation, have finally been reconciled.

Given the present boom in green art, these natural art works are destined to meet more and more success.

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Pixar, Disney, National Geographic, MoMA, Google, Behance and more to be part of the event’s third edition

Dubai, UAE, 07 March 2017: -ING Creative Festival (-ING) is set to return for its third edition this year, once again bringing a host of world-class creative speakers for three days of workshops, talks and creative market. The event will take place at Alserkal Avenue from 13 to 15 April, with registration opening at 9am daily, followed by a packed schedule from 10am to 10pm.

In addition to the 22 speaker sessions, -ING will also feature a Creative Market welcoming over 55 artists – traveling to Dubai from as far as the Dominican Republic and Mexico – to showcase and sell their creative products. Guests will also be able to choose from 30 workshops, and network and mingle with over 20 exhibitors. Complimented by eclectic live music and a wide variety of food vendors to suit every palate, this year’s festivities are set to build on the immense success of the 2016 event, which left its 1,300+ creative attendees feeling inspired.

Dan Goods, Visual Strategist for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s (NASA) Jet Propulsion Laboratory, who is set to address audiences on day three and also host a workshop, said: “While seemly different, artists and scientists share the same passion to ask questions and explore. They are both dreamers, and the results of the best of them often elicit awe and wonder. I can’t wait to learn and share with the Middle Eastern public about the awe and wonder of our human existence.”

Meanwhile, Andrew Gordon, Directing Animator at Pixar and –ING Creative Festival speaker, also commented: “I have always been passionate about sharing everything I know with people who aspire to do storytelling and work with characters. Coming to Dubai is a way that I get to interact with the talent in the region as well as inspire the next generation of filmmakers and storytellers. My hope is to demystify the work we do so that anyone can approach it.”

Dan and Andrew are part of an impressive speaker line-up at -ING that includes Benson Shun, Animator at Disney; Steve Raymer, Photographer at National Geographic; Ingrid Chou, Assistant Creative Director at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA); and Hector Ouilhet, UX Designer at Google.

“Thanks to the support of the Dubai Government in recent years, Dubai has become a canvas for art and expression, its walls and streets adorned with art, and different outlets and initiatives that help drive the development of the creative sector, such as Alserkal Avenue. -ING is proud to be a part of this evolution, bringing some of the biggest names in the world to make the creative scene just that much bigger and better, and we can’t wait to kick off another successful event this year,” said Ramy Alawssy, founder of -ING.

For the full schedule of talks and workshops, please visit http://ingcreatives.com/program

About -ING

-ING is a creative community based in Dubai that is dedicated to running events that will unlock, develop and grow creative potential through a variety of Talks, Workshops and the Creative Market.

For more information, visit www.ingcreatives.com;