Is the street the biggest museum in the world? Is the impact of street-art in society minimized? Does it convey messages of openness and tolerance? We take stock with the artist Combo, creator of the Colors Festival.
Have Tintin and Captain Haddock kiss each other, revisit Mona Lisa as Mounia Lisa. The goal of the street-artist Combo is not to stir up the animosity of certain people, but rather to cultivate living together. Focus on this artist who advocates tolerance and equality through culture.
Combo did the Fine Arts but it is in the street that he feels the most free to express his creativity and to convey the messages of openness and tolerance that he wishes to bring through his art.
The impact of his work can be seen in the street, but also from the strong choice of the subjects he treats through his works. The street artist increasingly wants "to put communities, people who are less seen, less understood, forward."
To do this, he goes through, for example, the recovery of great classics of painting. He thus revisits key works such as "The Girl with a Pearl Earring" by Vermeer, "Mona Lisa" by Leonardo da Vinci to dress them in traditional, cultural clothes. A way of dressing that can be linked to "Berbers, Tunisians, Moroccans, Algerians".
The goal ?
In 2015, while traveling in Brussels, Combo decided to use the codes of each city to reclaim them. He then created a work in which we see Tintin and Haddock, entwined, which will become emblematic.
The subject is debated, which poses no problem for the street-artist . "If it offends some, too bad for them" , for him it's a question of point of view, everyone can interpret his work. However, its goal is not to shock but to normalize certain "differences", cultural, or even far from heteronormative diktats.
Right now stands the Colors Festival , an unmissable French street-art event which celebrates its second edition. In this place, around fifty French and international street artists have produced significant works. With regard to the artists represented, parity is deliberately required.
As the event organizer Combo explains,
Similarly, international figures of street-art alongside young shoots. A way to promote and highlight their work.
