Zevs

Z E V S

Z E V S

3

IMAGE$

From the sidewalks of cities to the walls of galleries, Zevs reacts to city signs and

to consumption codes. His work deals with the public area as well as with what art

represents and the relation between art and consumer society. Zevs was only twelve

years old when he started making graffiti on the walls of his neighborhood.

He first tagged his name on the walls, like a territorial recognition. Then he started to

react to the overload of advertising, which felt like an aggression of the “consensual

way to think.” All this finally led to a reflection about what city life is today. Little

by little, he sketches out an original graphic, plastic and semantic language. Today,

Zevs is greatly contributing to the recognition of street art as an essential form of

contemporary art. At just past the age of 30, he was able to find a place in European

galleries, but he still continues to work in the street. The street, as Daniel Buren said in

the 1960s, remains his real workshop.

Zevs, like many French graffiti artists, inherited the hip-hop and graffiti culture that

emerged in New York during the 1970s when it was exported to Europe in the 1980s.

There is no doubt that he has been part of this Nouvelle Vogue of artists who have come

from the graffiti universe, who knew how to realize the synthesis of several cultures. At

the crossroads of street art and the underground, his work also deals with pop culture,

the cinema, anti-authority culture, painting and art history.

He also extends the interest that the French had for graffiti as a fleeting art brut

long before the first writers in the New York subway. In 1960, Brassaï, a French

photographer of Hungarian descent, published a book called “Graffiti,” in which Picasso

took part. When, at the end of the 1990s, Zevs ironically wrote in “Proper Graffiti” – a

technique he forged, consisting of using a high pressure water blast that removes the

grime on the wall for writing clean- “I mustn’t dirty the walls of my town,” it recalled

the militant tag lines that appeared in May 1968, on the walls of Paris: “It’s forbidden

to forbid”. Seen as an “artisan of the urban guerrilla,” Zevs, through his interventions,

preaches a critical, structured and tough activism.

The first thing that holds a viewer’s attention in Zevs’ work is the way he plays with

the street art codes to appropriate the city walls, their codes, logos, architecture and

street furniture. He extends their existence, reveals their failures and finally affixes

his trace. But Zevs’ statement is transversal. It unfolds between several matters and

several territories: those of communication and advertisement, which he turns inside

out and perverts the codes, such as in the “Visual Attacks” in 2000 or in the “Liquidated

Logos” now; those of the theater, Happenings and performances; those of the art

video at the edge of the documentary film; and finally those of the cinema, between

blockbusters and experimental movies.

4 5

It could begin as a teen movie; an alternative teen movie. From the window of his

bedroom, the teenager observes some writers tagging the fences of a wasteland. At

twelve years old, the boy, who is not Zevs yet, creates graffiti in his neighborhood on

the way to school. After being arrested for the first time, the Parisian police treated

him as a real little criminal, leaving him in the police station for a few hours. He still

remembers that. Then he is arrested a dozen times more, until he decides not to be

caught again. All these misadventures gave him the taste of a kind of cat and mouse

game with the police, but an aesthetic one. The police aesthetics, the thriller or film noir

codes with their crimes and serial killers, became something of a gimmick for Zevs and

started to be a sign of his presence. Zevs-the-outlaw produces artistic offences, and

the street becomes his crime scene.

The crime scene: a street at night.

The weapons: some white road paint, a brush.

The crime: At nightfall, Zevs went hunting in the city. At the end of the 1990s, Paris

was “overpainted” with graffiti. Zevs tried to find other surfaces to leave his trace.

He embarked on a quest to find another place in town. Finally, he chose the most

unnoticed element of the city. He started catching the shadows of the town, by

outlining the ghostly presence of the Parisian architecture and of the street furniture

under street lighting. These “Electric Shadows” (1998-2001) extended what already

existed: the traffic lights, the monuments, the bridges and even the passers-by. These

bright white lines on the asphalt make their potentially unseen presence visible. When

he revealed this invisible part of the street, Zevs, then so-called “Shadow Flasher,”

opened up new territories and captured part of the evanescence of the city. In

daylight, these white shapes mean nothing. It was a kind of graphic and furtive poem.

Sometimes, his Shadows were political ways of talking about contemporary urban

reality. One night in New York, he caught the shadow of a sleeping homeless person, a

shadow among the shadows. At some times, this cinematographic way of catching the

nightly urban atmosphere recalls unsorted images of films by Cassavetes, Scorsese,

Jarmusch or from French thrillers.

While working on his Shadows, Zevs used to close off the area with a plastic tape like

that used by the police: “Crime Scene- Do not cross” became “Art Crime Scene – Do not

cross”. As strange as it may seem, few people, not even the police, found this unusual.

Zevs finished his work by taking photos of it, to leave a trace even after clean-up crews

had gotten rid of it. But he also thought about Weegee, the photographer who shot

bloody crime scenes. Art crime was his business...

Zevs likes to play with cinematographic codes, and there is nothing more photogenic

and more cinematographic than a city at night. For him, the city is not only a support or

a playground, but also a full character, a protagonist in the story that he is writing.

Like a film noir, the city at night enables a dramaturgy of contrasting lights, a recurrent

worry for the artist. Zevs’ work constantly deals with shade and light, day and night,

the visible and the invisible. As a criminal would sow some clues in his runaway, he

leaves behind more or less discernible traces to be revealed.

6 7

The German subsidiary company filed a complaint against X. On the Alexanderplatz,

people were coming to look at the hole in the poster. A few days later, he showed the

Lavazza girl at the Rebell Minds Gallery, a few meters from the kidnapping place.

The day after, the police turned up but Zevs had already left Berlin, with the hostage

folded in a suitcase. For months, he sometimes showed and sometimes hid the

hostage. Finally, he sent it to the brand CEO with an anonymous letter of ransom. In

2004, the public could vote whether or not the hostage was to be executed. In 2005,

after numerous negotiations, an agreement was reached between Zevs and Lavazza,

giving the artist a check. As a Happening, this conclusion will justifiably be seen as

the hijacking of an anti-ad subversive strategy turned into a huge media event for this

brand that proclaimed “Express Yourself!” In Germany, the “Visual Kidnapping” gave

activists ideas, leading to the kidnapping of many others ads.

This taught Zevs a lesson. Now, he distances himself from the brands. Since he began

attacking logos by “liquidating” them, many luxury labels have contacted him, but he

has always turned down their proposals. The “Liquidated Logos” began in Berlin in

2005, with a Nike swoosh and then with the logos of Coca-Cola and McDonald’s. Now he

works on the logos of luxury trademarks, which he duplicates in order to liquidate them.

By making them liquid, Zevs visually attacks their symbolic function.

He undertakes a critical raid and examines the power and the promotion of advertising

signs. The keystone of a brand identity, the logo, interferes in the emotional landscape.

It’s an extremely efficient “silent buyer”. When he liquidates the well-known logos of

Chanel or Louis Vuitton, Zevs attacks a network of signs (of identification), of (social)

codes, of significations and of emotions. A logo digests a world. By a suggestive

opposite force, its metamorphosis by being liquidated recalls the over-consumption,

the tyranny of the advertisement, the slang of the outwards. At the same time, Zevs

clearly keeps these ambivalences when he appropriates the logo to produce his

work and when he gives it a new aesthetic. By doing this, he confirms the logo is an

aesthetic object.

The liquidation performed in Hong Kong in 2008 is probably the most compelling. On a

stage, the artist starts by tattooing the Chanel logo onto the naked back of a woman.

The image of this famous acronym, which excites so many women, with its letters

bleeding onto her waist, is extremely striking. It recalls Man Ray’s violin and Ingres’

bathing beauty, who believes that voluptuousness need not be in nudity but in brand-

name fashion. It also possesses the violence and sensuality of Peter Greenaway’s

“Pillow Book.”

According to Zevs, every artistic space – both literally and figuratively- is a possibility

for a performance, a story, a scenario. Most of his projects and the films he bases them

on are meticulously written and cut. For example, the film that relates to the story of

Night disclosure in the black light for his “Invisible Graffiti”- For three years, Zevs

has tried out this special kind of graffiti made with fluorescent paint that can only be

seen under black, artificial or UV-filtered light. He outlines the cracks and the rifts on

the building walls, uncovers the scars of the town, and streaks the architecture with

electric lightning. He has performed large-scale “Invisible Graffiti,” such as on the

façade of the Glyptotek Museum in Copenhagen.

But there were some times when the clues were bloodier. One night of 2001, Zevs

changed into a serial killer, a serial ad-killer. He started to shoot methodically and

equally men and women, provided that they are handsome, unlined, and dehumanized

by the magic Photoshop. A red splash sprayed right between the eyes of the models

on the advertisements, with dribbles of blood-red paint dripping from their faces. The

sabotage is efficient. The “Visual Attacks” are frontal attacks against the omnipresence

of advertising in the urban landscape as well as a manner to mark off its huge power

of suggestion. Doing this, he disrupts the trade reading of the image and obstructs the

identification of the passer-by with the bloody model. Zevs hijacks the power of the

image at his advantage.

Street by street, he left bodies of top models, executed in the cause of rejecting all

conventional lifestyle patterns. As a signature, he left a photo of himself, masked, on

the poster to taunt the police. In 2008, he reoffended with the “Visual Violations”. This

time the attacks took aim at the icons of our world, where everything becomes Pop:

Marilyn Monroe or Mona Lisa, Che Guevara or Albert Einstein, Columbo or Superman.

The photographs were taken from the Internet. Their faces were obliterated with a flash-

effect in a Photoshop, but we know them so well that we still recognize them. However

they were no longer images, but only blurred depictions, shades, shapes.

Zevs is a dangerous mass culture killer. He knows the meaning of what Roszak called

“Counter-culture”.

His artistic expression is an opposing force based upon power itself. “As in Aikido, I

reverse the power to change the flow at my advantage”, he often says. One of his most

significant works about this reversed power is the “Visual Kidnapping,” which is written

like a thriller.

The “Visual Kidnapping” was a lengthy performance that began in Berlin in 2002 and

finished at the Palais de Tokyo in Paris in 2005. A fifteen by fifteen meter poster on the

Alexanderplatz of an eight-meter girl, muse of the coffee brand Lavazza. Later, Zevs will

tell the French newspaper Libération: “Armed with my scalpel, I climbed the front of the

hotel where the Lavazza poster was boarded. An hour and a half later, the hostage was

mine and I left the place, leaving behind a hole in the poster and a sentence: VISUAL

KIDNAPPING- PAY NOW!”. A paper chase began between the brand and the artist. He

demanded a ransom of 500 000 Euros, which equals the cost of a marketing campaign.

98

the “Visual Kidnapping” is a thriller, and even the documentary film talking about his

exhibition at the Glyptotek Museum in Copenhagen keeps us in suspense. One of his

last photographic series, called “Cold Traces,” shows some strange footsteps in the

snow. Zevs says, “I was walking alone in the mountains with a red spray can in my

bag. So I was wondering what I could mark in this new and immaculate territory. Two

hours later, I turned around and saw my traces in the snow. Then I had the idea to paint

them, to extend and outline what already existed.” These blood-red traces in the snow

drive us into a frightening atmosphere with a premonition of violence: a cross between

“Fargo”, “A Simple Plan” and Parcival Everett’s novel “Wounded”. “I also thought about

“Shining”,“ Zevs says, and at the same time, he should think of a Rothko painting, with

the blurred outlined red watered down in the bluish snow.

Zevs’s work progresses like a baroque and heroic opera, or a drama proposal. He

completely fulfils the dimension of drama in his work. The choice of his name, Zevs, is

the nickname of the suburb train that almost crushed him one night in a dark railway

tunnel. By using a V instead of the U from the name of the Greek mythological god of

gods, Zevs refers to another mythology, the mythology of superheroes, which inspires

the character that the artist has created. A yellow jumpsuit, a leopard-printed scarf

hiding his face, a hat, and a pair of gloves: in his artistic life, Zevs is incognito and few

people know the real face of this discreet young man. He’s Clark Kent and Superman.

Moreover, the logo that he created crosses the graphics of the yellow triangle on the

voltage transformer in the Parisian subway and the logo of the Siegel and Shuster’s

kryptonian hero.

“I wanted to create a role, a persona, and to work at a distance, behind this image,”

he explains. It’s a question of representation and distance. The artist, who was also

an actor, knows what Brecht called “distance”: this gap between what is presented to

be seen and what is real, this strangeness stimulating people to think about reality.

Everything in his work as well as in the role that he has composed deals with this gap.

Is Zevs an urban hero, produced by the urban jungle and the neuroses of the

modern world? Probably not. He remembers that when Superman gets in contact

with Kryptonite, he looses his force and his logo liquefies. Zevs owns a stone from

somewhere else, called “Zevsonite”. At its touch, trademarks dissolve. He uses

the mythic power of the superhero to reverse its energy and to stigmatize the

disintegration of the images and of the signs.

In fact, Zevs is not a superhero or an antihero. He’s a “counter-hero”.

T H E W O R K S

12

L I q u I d A t E d L o u I s V u I t t o n M u r A k A M I M u L t I c o /

P E r f o r M A n c E A t c A b A r E t V o L t A I r E , Z u r I c h , 2 0 1 1

Liquitex and UV print on canvas

35 x 24 inches, 2 panels, each

89 x 61 cm

14

L I q u I d A t E d L o u I s V u I t t o n M u r A k A M I M u L t I c o - s I L V E r , 2 0 1 1

Liquitex on canvas


152 x 91 cm.

16

L I q u I d A t E d L o u I s V u I t t o n M u r A k A M I M u L t I c o - b L A c k , 2 0 1 1

Liquitex on Canvas

30 1/2 x 40 inches

78 x 102 cm

18

L I q u I d A t E d L o u I s V u I t t o n M u r A k A M I M u L t I c o - W h I t E , 2 0 1 0

Liquitex on Canvas

34 x 51 inches

87 x 130 cm

20

L o u I s V u I t t o n f E n c E , 2 0 1 1

black gesso and copper on wood

12 x 56 inches

31 x 142 cm

22

L I q u I d A t E d G u c c I - Y E L L o W , 2 0 1 1

Liquitex on canvas

48 x 60 inches

122 x 152 cm

24

L I q u I d A t E d h E r M E s - o r A n G E , 2 0 1 1

Liquitex on canvas

24 x 48 inches

61 x 122 cm

26

L I q u I d A t E d c h A n E L - b L A c k , 2 0 1 0

Liquitex on wood

60 x 24 inches

152 x 61 cm

28

L I q u I d A t E d P L A Y b o Y - b L A c k , 2 0 1 0

Liquitex on canvas

51 x 32 inches

130 x 81 cm

30

L I q u I d A t E d A P P L E - s I L V E r , 2 0 1 1

Liquitex on canvas

48 x 24 inches

122 x 61 cm

32

L I q u I d A t E d c b s - b L u E , 2 0 1 0

Liquitex on canvas

48 inches, diameter

122 cm

34

L I q u I d A t E d M A r L b o r o , 2 0 1 1

Liquitex on canvas

42 1/2 x 36 inches

108 x 91 cm

36

V I s u A L V I o L A t I o n - c h E G u E V A r A , 2 0 1 1

UV print on aluminum

40 x 33 inches

101 x 83 cm

Edition of 6, + 2 AP

38

V I s u A L V I o L A t I o n - M A r I L Y n M o n r o E , 2 0 1 1

UV print on aluminum

40 x 33 inches

101 x 83 cm


40

E L E c t r I c s h A d o W – M E t r o , P A r I s , 2 0 0 0

UV print on plexiglas

35 1/2 x 24 inches

90 x 61 cm


42

E L E c t r I c s h A d o W - P u b L I c b E n c h , P A r I s , 2 0 0 0


24 x 35 1/2 inches

61 x 90 cm


44

E L E c t r I c s h A d o W - M o u L I n r o u G E , P A r I s , 2 0 0 0


35 1/2 x 24 inches

90 x 61 cm


46

V I c t I M - s A o P A o L o P E r f o r M A n c E , 2 0 1 1

UV print on painted iron

15 3/4 x 22 3/4 inches

40 x 58 cm


48

L I q u I d A t E d L o G o s - c o c A c o L A , P A r I s , 2 0 0 5


33 1/2 x 49 inches

85 x 125 cm


50

L I q u I d A t E d L o G o s - M c d o n A L d ’ s , P A r I s , 2 0 0 6


41 1/3 x 33 1/2 inches

105 x 85 cm


52

V I s u A L A t t A c k - r o c h A s , 2 0 0 1


35 1/2 x 24 inches

90 x 61 cm


54

G L o b A L L I q u I d A t I o n - b L u E , 2 0 1 1

Liquitex on canvas


102 x 102 cm

56

L I q u I d A t E d n A s d A q - b L A c k , 2 0 1 0

Liquitex on canvas

57 1/2 x 45 inches

146 x 114 cm

58

c u t t o t h E c h A s E , 2 0 1 1

Liquitex, UV printing, and invisible ink on canvas


76x178cm

60

L I q u I d A t E d M o r G A n s t A n L E Y - W h I t E , 2 0 1 1

Liquitex on canvas

30 x 52 inches

76 x 132 cm

62

L I q u I d A t E d G o L d M A n s A c h s - b L u E , 2 0 1 1

Liquitex on canvas

36 x 52 inches

91 x 132 cm

64

L I q u I d A t E d M E r r I L L L Y n c h - b L A c k , 2 0 1 0

Liquitex on canvas

38 x 47 inches

97 x 120 cm

66

L I q u I d A t E d b E A r n s t E A r n s - b E I G E , 2 0 1 1

Liquitex on canvas

36 x 52 inches

91 x 132 cm

68

L I q u I d A t E d L E h M A n b r o t h E r s - b L A c k , 2 0 1 1

Liquitex on canvas

38 x 51 inches

97 x 130 cm

70

L I q u I d A t E d Y E s , 2 0 1 1

brass plated stainless steel on patinated bronze base

12 1/2 x 12 x 3 1/2 inches

32 x 31 x 9 cm


72

r E V E n G E , 2 0 1 1

industrial metal window and reproduction of the New York Post

39 1/2 x 32 x 2 inches

100 x 81 x 5 cm

74

t h E b I r d s , 2 0 1 1

wax, black gesso, Wall Street Journal clippings from September 2008 & 1929 on wood panel


61 x 31 cm

77

b I o G r A P h Y

1977 Born in France

Currently lives and works in Paris and New York

s o l o E x h i b i t i o n s A n d P e r f o r m a n c e s

2011 Renaissance, Art Statements, Tokyo

Liquidated Version, De Buck Gallery, New York

2010 Razzle Dazzle System, Arsenal Museum, Kiev

Victim, Sao Paulo, Brazil

Reminiscences, Musee de la Vielle Charite, Marseille

LVX, Chateau de Vincennes, France

Moscow Biennial, Russia

Nude LV Murakami Liquidated, Cabaret Voltaire, Zurich

2009 LVX, Lazarides Gallery, New Castle, United Kingdom

Art Totale, University of Leuphana, Germany

Liquidated Logos, Art Statements, Hong Kong

Outsiders, Lazrides Gallery, New York

Euro Liquidated, Palais de Tokyo, Paris

Visual Attack, de Pury & Luxembourg Gallery, Zurich

2008 Outsiders, Lazarides Gallery, New York

Electroshock, Ny Carlsberg Glypothek, Copenhagen

Postcapitalism Kidnapping, Art Statements, Hong Kong

Projection of ZEVS film, Maison Europeene de la Photographie MEP, Paris

2007 ZEVS, Lazarides Gallery, London

Projection du Film, Maison Européene de la Photographie MEP, Paris

Visible Grafitti, Galerie Patricia Dorfmann, Paris

2006 Perpetual Ending, Galerie Patricia Dorfmann, Paris

Ugly Winners, Galerie Agnes b., Paris

Swish, Lazarides Gallery, London

2005 Visual Kidnapping, Palais de Tokyo, Paris

2003 Art Crime Scene, Le Triptyque, Paris

Aux portes de l’enfer, NIM, Paris

2002 Paris-Berlin, Galerie Rebellminds, Berlin

2001 ZEVS, Galerie Patricia Dorfmann, Paris

Shadow Hunter, Vitrines des Galeries Lafayette, Paris

1999 Warning: May Provoke Damage, Maison Européene de la Photographie MEP,

Paris

78

G r o u p E x h i b i t i o n s

2011 Summer Selections, De Buck Gallery, New York

“Mummy, I m scarred!”, ArtGig, Hatudai Hospital, Tokyo

2010 Inter-Cool 3., HMKV Art Center, Dortmund, Germany

2009 Original Copy, Cazrtoryskich Museum, Krakow

La Force de l’Art 02, Grand Palais, Paris

Urban Art, Weserburg Museum, Bremen

2008 Zevs Tina B, Prague Contemporary Art Festival, Prague

Postcapitalism Kidnapping, Art Statements Gallery, Hong Kong

Radical Advertising, NRW Forum, Düsseldorf

Outsiders, Lazarides Gallery, New York

Fresh Air Smell Funny, Centre d’art Domenikanerkirche, Osnabrueck, Germany

2007 Glow Art Festival, MU, Eindhoven

Graffiti, Galerie Magda Danysz, Paris

Still On and None the Wiser, Von der Heydt Museum, Wuppertal, Germany

Gezeichnet, Peter Borchardt Gallery, Hamburg

Invisible Shadow, Maison Rouge, Fondation Antoine de Galbert, Paris

Shcontemporary, de Pury & Luxembourg Gallery, Shanghai

Backjumps Libe Issue 3, Kunstraum Kreuzberg/Bethanian, Berlin

Wakin Up Nights, de Pury & Luxembourg Gallery, Zurich

2006 Ugly Winners, Galerie de Jour Agnès, Paris

Intersection des arts, Chapelle de la Pitié Salpetrière, Paris

Swish, Lazarides Gallery, London

2005 Street Magic, Inside Outside Gallery, Cleveland

Heimspiel, Galerie Rebellminds, Berlin

The Live Issue II, Kunstraum Kreuzberg/Bethanien, Berlin

La Galerie Fête ses Quinze Ans, Galerie Patricia Dorfmann, Paris

Santa Ghetto, Lazarides Gallery, London

2004 Showroom: “Imposture Légitime,” Galerie Patricia Dorfmann, Paris

Biennale Art Grandeur Nature, Synesthésie, Paris

Die Nacht ist meine Welt, Galerie Rebellminds, Berlin

La rue aux artistes, Viacom, 300 panels across France

9 Points of the Law, NGBK, Berlin

Biennale Internationale d’Art Contemporain, Musée de Sharjah, Sharjah, United

Arab Emirates

© De Buck Gallery 2011

De Buck Gallery

511 W 25Th Street , Suite 502

New York, NY 10001

t. +1 212 255 5735

E. [email protected]

www.debuckgallery.com

Essay

Written by Marie Deparis-Yafil

Photo credits

p. 61: Cut to the chase ¦ Benoit Pailley

p. 79: Time Square ¦ Sebastien Micke

Lay-out and typesetting

Stipontwerpt, Antwerp, Belgium

www.stipontwerpt.be

Printer

Daneels Graphic Group, Beerse, Belgium

www.daneels.be

ISBN 978 0 615 55837 0

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