• The company My Urban Experience offers urban leisure activities and in particular tours on the theme of street art, in the Chartrons district in Bordeaux.

  • During 1h30, the course shows the works of fifteen artists, Bordeaux or not and the visit is punctuated with anecdotes on the history of the district.

Do you know nothing about street art or are you interested in it and follow a few artists?

In both cases, the visit offered by My Urban Experience will inevitably have something to teach you.

It is organized in the Chartrons district of Bordeaux by Jourdan O 'Mullan, tour guide, who is a mine of information on the artists whose careers she follows with passion but also on the history of the district marked by the trade. and World War II.

And sharp you have to be when you have the ambition to embark locals in the discovery of their own city, from the angle of urban art.

Various expression supports

From the quays to the Chartrons market, the 1h30 visit evokes fifteen street art artists, from Bordeaux or passing through Bordeaux. If you've ever admired a work decorating a street corner, speculating on the artist's motivations, the tour will give you something to grind. It starts with a strong work of A-MO, a Bordeaux artist adept at paint-tag (superposition of tagged letters). Commissioned by the city at the request of the Mémoires et Partages association, it refers to the sinking of Africa, the French Titanic, which claimed 568 victims, including Senegalese sharpshooters, in 1920.

And, looking up at Jourdan O 'Mullan's invitation, one can also have surprises. For example, we discover two forbidden senses retouched by Clet Abraham, known for these hijackings of signage. On one, the white bar has been overlooked by a bridge and on the other a flower has made its way through. "The goal is not to degrade or make illegible but to bring a note of humor or to send a message", comments the guide. This artist relies on the tolerance of the authorities for these works to last.

Others choose to speak on buildings under construction, resolved to the ephemeral destiny of their productions. Through the barriers of a construction site, we can still see, from a distance, a wall adorned with graffiti. “I do weekly scouting before the visits,” explains Jourdan O 'Mullan, whose route is never quite the same.

There are also supports reserved for this practice, such as the walls of the skate park on the quays.

They were invested in 2021 by the Skinjackin Crew collective.

You can admire the works tinged with pop surrealism by Charles Foussard, self-taught, who cut his teeth on the blockhouses on the coast.

Auntie Prout, for her part, was introduced by her grandmother to watercolor, embroidery and cross stitch.

She shares a childish and slightly offbeat universe.

However, the renovation of the skate park will call into question these surfaces of expression left to urban art.

Passionate, the guide follows the artists on social networks and when one of them posts a photo of a new work, she rushes to find it

in situ

“like in a treasure hunt”.

A documented and fun visit

Going deeper into the neighborhood, we discover the very colorful work of Spaïk, a Mexican artist, produced in 2015. Invited by the Pôle Magnetic association, he painted two huge shimmering foxes. "He is inspired by the folklore of his country to often imagine four-legged animals and he even spilled over onto the limestone, when it is forbidden", underlines the guide to whom no detail escapes. Right next door, on a wall adjoining a school, is a fresco by Speedy Graphito, "one of the precursors of street art in France", she explains. Using stencils, he produced a work that "calls on the collective memory, notably with video game characters", explains the guide.

The visit is very rich: we admire the stop blocks decorated by Matth Velvet, industrial designer by trade, the monumental and enigmatic work of Monkey Bird on the facade of the Chartrons gymnasium, or even a Cyclopean character from Skou, a past Greek artist. by Bordeaux.

At the end of a parking lot, we come across a woman's head from Alber, an artist who is very successful and whose works are composed of flat colors.

The guide is based on archive images of the district and photos of the works of the artists presented to further enrich its subject.

“The best compliment you can give me when you live in Bordeaux is to tell me that you have learned something,” says the guide, who shares her knowledge with undisguised pleasure.

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  • Art

  • Street art

  • Aquitaine

  • Bordeaux