Street art is a unique form of art as it is often an expression of someone’s opinion or reaction to ongoing events. It is also different from traditional painting because the environment has to be part of the art and the artwork cannot usually be transported from one gallery to another.
Usually when we think of street art we imagine a wall or the ground as the canvas for expression. But French street artist Clet Abraham, who is based in Florence, Italy, chose to join his art with street signs and the results are quite interesting.
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Is mister vaccine opening the door?
Clet Abraham studied art at the Fine Arts Academy in France. Before he moved to Florence and opened his studio, the artist restored antique furniture and was a carpenter.
Now he is most known for his sticker art and more precisely, his art on street signs. He shares his wok on Instagram where he now has over 90k followers. Sometimes the revamped signs are just fun and creative pieces but most of them have a deeper meaning behind them and are often related to current events.
It’s curious, but since the bars reopened the street signs are different …….
Hey! Today it’s really hot around here, did anyone forget to turn off the heat?
Bored Panda reached out to Clet to find out why he was attracted to street signs and he explained that road signs are a simple way of communication and he likes the directness of them, “I don’t want an art for learned professors but instead for those who do not usually compare with culture.”
He continues, “Road signs are also the symbol of a constant presence of authority, we are in a democracy and I think we must have the opportunity to question the rules, to discuss them, with the ambition of being able to improve them. I mean, we’re not just here to obey.”
Today, working on the street in Oslo, someone asked me:
-Is it legal what you’re doing?
-This is not the good question I said, but rather: is it good or bad what you are doing?
Then he told me: -okay, but what does this design mean?
– it means that it should be forbidden to die in the Mediterranean sea just because you try to escape poverty or war.
I agree he says, but as long as there is misery and oppression somewhere in the world there will be those who try to escape, and we are all responsible even if this poverty seems far away.
Welcome to Oslo!
I CAN’T BREATHE
Once again, a human being has died under the weight of authority. “non mi uccise la morte ma due guardie bigotte, mi cercarono l’anima a forza di botte” (De André)
Love has no limits. No borders
We are looking for someone to control the controllers who control those who control the controllers who control the ….
When talking with Agata from Guide Me Florence, Clet explained that he is not against rules, but he is “against unjust impositions. Sometimes the rules aren’t just or justified.” Clet also says that even if he doesn’t agree with some street signs or rules, he won;t go and destroy them but rather built something out of it.
He told Bored Panda, “I claim the concept of improving road signs, people look much more at them in my work, creating empathy instead of rejection of authoritarian and obtuse character. I think there is an educational character in my work that could also be of use to road safety.”
EVOLUTION / INVOLUTION
It is strange, but looking at the three people of this image, the one that seems to me the least human of all it’s the one in the middle.
I love bicycle…..
Migration in Miami.
Migration is the story of humanity.
But even if he doesn’t destroy the signs and sees his activity as art, not everyone accepts that. The authorities often consider the stickers on the signs as vandalism. The artist says that it actually depends on the country and on the city, sometimes the stickers can be removed the day after and in some places they stay for years and years.
Clet told Huck, “Where the authority or the power has some auto-criticism, my work remains, if not it disappears. The most violent and close-minded reaction came from Japan. In Europe I had some trouble in Brest (France) and Pistoia (Italy).”
ARRÊT à Montréal, Québec. L’ART est une affaire d’équipe, comme l’amour. STOP in Montreal, Québec. ART is a crew story, like love.
Hey guys, courage, you just have 39678754 pieces left to stick!!!
As expected, the “strange animals” passed at the roundabout at La Carrière (Cap-Sizun, Brittany) and destroyed my character 2 days after it was edited.
I call it, “CAREER SYNDROME”:
If to a directional arrow I add two arms that point in the same direction, objectively I reinforce its safety message.
So when a public service employee destroys this work, there is no longer any consideration of public safety but only respect for orders.
So there is no longer a real public service but above all a service to one’s own quarry.
And this with the taxpayer’s money.
I would like to work for a better world and demonstrate through my work that claiming absolute respect for standards is the first obstacle to improving them ….. and therefore the first obstacle against a better world.
Democracy is not going to vote, it is on the other hand the freedom to criticize and to express this criticism, at all levels of society.
Particularly for civil servants, the duty of reserve and obedience to orders is a formidable obstacle to the improvement of society.
And I am amazed at the acceptance of this fact by society itself.
When you look through the photos on Clet’s Instagram, you quickly realise that he really likes the access denied street sign. The imagination never seems to lack new ways of seeing it.
We asked how the artist keeps coming up with new ideas when there is a limited amount of street signs. And we found out that it is the thing that inspires him, “I think that it is the limits that stimulate me, I do not tolerate the imposition a priori and seeing it generates in me the energy to seek an alternative. Our modern society is increasingly full of rules, I would rather encourage the sense of responsibility of each one.”
Today is the end of the lockdown in France, I don’t know about you but personally I have the feeling of coming out of a very very deep hole.
Après le Gay Pride, à Paris, même les interdits fleurissent (After Gay Pride, in Paris, even the bans are flourishing).
What are your thoughts on this kind of art and what do you think of the message that the artist Clet Abraham tries to send? Have you ever seen these signs in real life and what was your reaction? Tell us all about it in the comments and upvote the signs that you thought were the most creative!
Mai 68 Mai 2018. LIBERTÉ, OU ES TU ? Bordeaux (May 68 May 2018. FREEDOM, WHERE ARE YOU? Bordeaux. ).
Hi! In San Francisco there’s only ONE WAY
LIBERTÉ ÉGALITÉ FRATERNITÉ. Mon œil.
In France, the police injure, maim and kill innocent people. Justice and the government are silent.
The “Unjust” After six months of Gilets jaunes events in France, there’s so many injured yellow vests (More than 2000, 300 seriously in the head, 24 lose an eye, 5 hands torn off, 1 death)
And while many yellow vests have been arrested and convicted for violence, no police officer has been sanctioned for the time being. – the law is the same for everyone isn’t it?
In Los Angeles the bans are a bit more sugary
World Day Against Death Penalty…… Kill someone to teach others not to kill !! But is it possible to be more cruel and stupid than that? The death penalty, in fact, has never prevented crime but rather serves to terrorize people in order to better subdue them.
In 1786 the Grand Duke of Tuscany abolished the death penalty for the first time in history. And it is precisely for this humanistic culture that I am pleased to have my studio in Florence, more than for its old stones.
“CUT IT OUT”
I dreamed of laws that serve as bridges between people, no barriers.
Cédric Herrou and Martine Landry for president!
Happy new year of the pig in Paris. I love the multiculturalism of this city.
« THE WALL »
This is the title of my next solo show in Paris in the Joël Knafo Gallery (182 rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré)
Normally I do not like to expose, for a street artist it’s always a bit of a fall of style, I prefer the raw freedom of the street and its adventures, good or bad.
But it will soon be 10 years that I work on the street signs and I felt the need to take stock, this exhibition is the retrospective of (almost) everything I’ve done in the last decade, the opportunity to an overview.
Personally, I do not paint on the walls because I would like to avoid the argument of the private property but rather to approach the theme of the relation between the State and the People, whose street signs are the visual symbol par excellence.
But « THE WALL » is also a dedicated tribute to freedom of expression and to all those who practice it with sincerity and courage, we need it today more than ever.
I believe the cat because it is the living proof that hierarchy is not indispensable to a happy coexistence.
I pray you, a little attention
Before I was a normal exclamation point and no one was watching me. Who created me thought we, road signs, we all had to be identical to be recognizable. So we have become banal and boring.
Who created us was so obsessed with his authority and his rules that at one point he stopped thinking. And so he made us stupid.
Boring and stupid, it’s clear that people do not like us!
We had to be the salvation of the traffic but in fact there are still a lot of road accidents, proof of our inefficiency, and nobody looks at us anymore.
So I bravely decided to change and become different to regain some consideration.
So I became a prayer.
Because I wanted to tell the world that “me too, road sign, I need love”! Happy holidays. The Prayer.
Wine painting
A SIGN OF LOVE
It’s vacation time!
I would love so much that all the authority obsessed, the psycho-rigid, the law-obtuse and the maniac of order would take a lot of time to rest well and why not, to do some gardening.
Perhaps contact with the beauty and bounty of nature could awaken in them more love and empathy for the others …
Madrid. A favor de la liberación del toro
E de la liberación en general (Madrid. In favor of the liberation of the bull
And of liberation in general).
Hey UK, mind the gap!
Peaceful sign In the sky.
A girl in Miami Beach…. she sometime looks a bit sad.
How to put a dragon in the street of Kaohsiung, Taïwan?
Just ask to the traffic engineering and the great staff of Pier2 Art Center…..
The law of the strongest.
Don’t show me the way forward, just give me a light to find it.
True gaming enthusiasts prefer to lose, like that the desire and pleasure to play is always there.
In fact, my condemnation by Italian justice to pay more than 10000 euros for sculpture of the “common man” is very stimulating.
I’ve had some interesting ideas about it and after summer I’ll talk to you, the common man never dies!
This photo was taken last April in the beautiful city of Hamburg (you have certainly recognized it) where the allocation of car parks to citizens goes by playing at Rock, Paper, Scissors.
Sunrise or Sunset?
Behind the cold rigidity of the authoritarian and conservative spirit, warm humanity, in its tolerance shines for all of us.
I am acquitted!
The Common Man is free !!
I wanted to thank all those who have always supported me, from 7pm today onwards you are warmly invited to share rivers of champagne in my studio
Spaghetti’s fatal attraction for a tomato.
DAVID
After 10 years in Florence, I thought it’s time to pay homage to the Florentines who support me.
Only who takes himself too seriously may end up looking like a clown.
Crisis of inspiration
President’s dog. Paris
THE LAW OF NATURE.
Like a tree, l only need love and fresh water to live, and the Italian state is well aware.
In fact, i just finished paying it € 36526 tax for stating € 39290 revenue in 2014.
But it’s all right, because love, the true love, is free. So, i have enough money to pay the water bill. ( And next year, if it rains a lot, maybe i can do some savings).
The law for the stop, the Art for the start
If the world is a beautiful red apple, then the prohibition is the worm?
We have to choose between relaxing or being free (Thucydides)
Musician counter current, by night.
The trap
Paris
Squali (Sharks)
Firenze (Florence)
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