France's answer to Banksy: the anonymous street artist filling potholes with colourful mosaics [View all]
https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2022/sep/11/frances-answer-to-banksy-the-anonymous-street-artist-filling-potholes-with-colourful-mosaics-
Frances answer to Banksy: the anonymous street artist filling potholes with colourful mosaics
That artwork may have partially disappeared, but many of Ememems other creations remain dotted throughout the municipalitys streets
some 350 and counting. Over the past six years, he has made a speciality of filling divots and potholes with multicoloured mosaics made from tiles of different sizes and different hues, arranged in striking geometric patterns. Some bear his signature, often in the form of an image of a trowel underscored by his name.
Ememem calls himself the pavement surgeon and the pothole knight, and refers to his artworks as flackings a play on the French word flaque, which means puddle. He has written that the works are a memory notebook of the city. It reveals what happened
Here, cobblestones have been picked up and thrown. There, a truck from the vegetable market tore off a piece of asphalt.
His work has been drawing more and more attention in the city. A local website called HappyCurio spotlights walking tours of them and his Instagram account has 147,000 followers. Hes a star of local street art, says Lisa Mambré, deputy mayor of the Lyons 9th arrondissement. His work is so noticeable. Everyone you ask seems to know about it.
Yet while Ememems works may be very visible he, in contrast, is exceedingly elusive. Like his fellow street artist Banksy, he prefers to retain his anonymity. He refuses to be photographed and doesnt give either phone or face-to-face interviews. Information about him is limited to a short biography and press kit on his official website (ememem-flacking.net). Its important for me to remain a little mysterious, he has written. And its also because Im not very talented when it comes to social interactions.
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https://www.happycurio.com/2016/12/24/street-art-flacking-tour-ememem-lyon/
LYON FLACKING TOUR AVEC EMEMEM, LAS DU CARREAU