WHO WHAT WHEN WHERE

Zevs


Zevs is the pseudonym of a French artist operating in the street art trend since the beginning of the 1990’s. His moniker originates from the name of a regional train, Zeus, which he nearly died under one day. The artist was one of the main animators of French street art. At the beginning, he produced tags, stickers, and graffiti. Towards the end of the 1990‘s, he commenced experiments with more technically complex forms of visual communication which led to the creation of the formula of invisible graffiti, shadows, visual attacks, visual kidnapping, visual violence as well as the concept of liquidated logos and original copies.

The majority of Zeus’s activities, originating from the classical and illegal urban interventions, underwent a transformation into a visual attack on the surrounding reality, the attack pointing out the appropriative nature of contemporary consumerist culture and sign-overloaded reality. Zevs makes references to comic book heros, such as Fantom or Spirit. Operating in the urban space, he appropriates it for himself and for his own purposes, he also intervenes in respectable gallery walls as was the case with the Munich Glyptothek actions. Elusive, mysterious, and intelligent, he fights the world of our perceptive habits.

Zeus carried out his actions in many places all over the world. His latest works include among others: Visual Attack in Depury & Luxembourg (Zurich, Switzerland 2009); Euro Liquidated in Palais de Tokyo (Paris, France 2009); Outsiders in Galerii Lazarides (New York, USA 2008); Electroshock in Ny Carlsberg Glyptothek (Copenhagen, Dania 2008); Postcapitalism Kidnapping in the Art Statements Gallery (Hong Kong, China 2008); Radical Advertising in NRW Forum (Düsseldorf, Germany 2008); Call it what you like in Kunstcentret Silkeborg Bad (Silkeborg, Denmark 2008); Fresh air smells funny in Kunsthalle Dominikanerkirche (Osnabrueck, Germany 2008).
Original copy – LDV: Lady with an Ermine and a Handbag


Louis Vuitton is one of the most-valued brands in the world. At the same time it is most frequently imitated and in consequence the most protected one. With his intervention Zevs made an attack on a strong brand. This attack was presented as a deceitful installation in the form of a yellow handbag, in the type designed by Louis Vuitton, on which the famous LV monogram will be embossed, being linked with its hidden renaissance predecessor – a signature abbreviation used by the master of Italian renaissance. In his project, the artist based on the fact that the LV logo, is suspiciously reminiscent of the LDV monogram used by Leonardo da Vinci. Placing the handbag in the vicinity of the famous portrait painted by Leonardo leaded to a shocking link of two cultural orders: symbolic and commercial. At the same time the intriguing link discloses the commercial status of both “objects”. Vuitton handbags are treated as the most important object of desire by many fashion buffs, similarly the Lady with an Ermine is an object of desire, particularly visual. Both these “cultural products” have become victims of numerous forgeries, which, what is more shocking, strengthens their uniqueness. The visually challenging installation was created to turn the many century approach to art, fashion, the copy and the original, as well as the relationship between what is old and new upside down.


Project curator: Marta Raczek



Pictures: Weronika Szmuc

12 - 22/06/2009

Original copy – LDV: Lady with an Ermine and a Handbag

National Museum in Krakow - Princes Czartoryski Museum
Św. Jana Street no 19