the street is our gallery

June 01, 2018 to July 01, 2018

The 4th edition of the Festival in Grenoble, The return of the Alpine street art festival.

By Cristina Ahita Sanz

 

June is just around the corner and that means the fourth edition of the Grenoble Street Art Fest! is about to begin.

The festival was born in 2015 and was conceived to be the first festival in Europe
combining exhibitions and site-specific creations in the city centre with the intention of showing the
variety of techniques that are part of Street Art: monumental frescoes, traditional frescoes, stencils,
collages, urban sculptures, works on canvas, installations, photographs, digital works,
anamorphoses, and others.

What’s coming?
The festival is scheduled from June 1st to July 1st, and will take place not only in Grenoble but also
in some neighbouring municipalities: Fontaine, Saint-Martin-D’Hères and Pont-de-Claix.
The Grenoble Street Art MOVIE Fest will be the first event of many to come, including several
exhibitions (expecting to receive around 15 000 visitors), book signing events, workshops,
conferences, guided visits (in French, English, Spanish and French sign language), live painting,
many unveiling events, and others.

Some of the artists participating this year are already known to the grenobloise audience, such as:
Snek, Veks Van Hillik, Etien’ and AnimalitoLand. For others, it will be their first time creating in
the streets of Grenoble. Pantonio, Sampsa, Mademoiselle Maurice, Sainer, Sebas Velasco and
Serty31 are some of the newcomers, although not the only ones.
Regarding the exhibitions, there are several spots to keep in mind: check the Ancien Musée de
Peinture (Grenoble) to enjoy a collaborative exhibition, you’ll find works of most of the artists
participating in the festival; visit the Espace Vallès (Saint-Martin-D’Hères) if you would like to see
the works of Isaac Cordal; pay a visit to the art centre Vog (Fontaine) to see the works of Green and
Emmanuel Louisgrand; and make sure you have a moment to visit the exhibition “Anarchically
Yours” at Spacejunk Art Center, where GOIN’s works will be displayed.
You can check the full program here and follow them on Facebook and Instagram so you don’t miss
any update, and, in the meanwhile, you can enjoy the recap video of last year’s edition.

Who is behind it?
The festival was created and is still organised by the association Spacejunk Art Center, based in
Grenoble (France). The head of the team is Jérôme Catz, who is curator of exhibitions and artistic
programming and project director. In 2003 Jérôme opened in Grenoble the first Spacejunk Art
Center, dedicated to Board Culture, Street Art, Lowbrow and Pop-Surrealism. Since then, two more
Spacejunk Art Centers have opened their doors in Bayonne and Lyon.
The strategy these centers follow is the same: to connect the artist with their audience. Since it was
created, the Spacejunk network has held not less than 15 exhibitions dedicated exclusively to Street
Art.

Festival evolution
Grenoble Street Art Fest! Started small, with not a lot of resources but with a lot of will and
ambition. The first edition counted with 33 artists; the one in 2016 counted with 43; last year’s
edition welcomed 57. Now in 2018, the number of artists will be similar to 2017. More and more
artists want to take part in this festival and the participation of international artists increases every
year.

The neighbors are big supporters of this initiative and the success of every edition has helped the
festival to get bigger, having now more sponsors both from private and public sectors. Besides, the
festival has greatly contributed to the city’s patrimony and promotes Grenoble, already known for
its mountains, as a cultural destination for tourists.

And what about next year?
Don’t worry, a fifth edition of the Grenoble Street Art Fest! will be held in 2019, Spacejunk’s team
is already working on it. Make sure to check their social networks once in a while for updates.

Video link:

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/grenoblestreetartfest