Kanos and Reci Xelecce created the Poetically Correct crew and came together with the goal of adding artwork to the streets of Paris without vandalizing or compromising the existing landscape in any way.

In combination with the launch of their new fragrance, Parisienne, YSL has developed an interactive site that enables visitors to explore Paris along with a chance to win their own trip.

Street art collective Faile let us know about some new work they are producing. Their “Wood Paintings” straddle a line between painting and sculpture, and give an added dimension to their graphic style.

The mayor of Paris recently announced plans to implement an electric car share system.  While details are still sparse, it appears that they will be building an infrastructure to support 2,000 EV’s within Paris, and another 2,000 cars will be distributed amongst the surrounding cities.  At an estimated price-tag of $14 million dollars to both build the infrastructure and purchase the vehicles, the system is not only affordable, but is yet another example of movement away from a product driven model towards a service-focused one.  There are a wide variety of immediate implications to this program, ranging from reduced [...]

Using over 2,400 different graffiti tags from all over Paris as raw data, artist Evan Roth photographed, tagged and sorted each piece by letter, creating am archive cataloging the stylistic diversity found in the city. This fascinating study is now on display at Foundation Cartier’s Born in The Streets exhibition. Watch the video below to see an overview of the project.

Graffiti Taxonomy: Paris, 2009 from Evan Roth on Vimeo.

[via Wooster Collective]

Monocle Magazine have announced their annual index of most liveable cities. Zurich comes in top place mainly for its vast investment in transport; Copenhagen is second for its mix of metropolitan life, great healthcare, low crime rates and a relaxed vibe; at 3, Monocle describes Tokyo as the world’s most livable megapolis and praises the city’s commitment to plant 1 million trees; 4th is Munich which blends history and innovation with ease and is generally a good place to do business; and Helsinki comes 5th partly because it has no Starbucks. Here’s the full list:

Gridskipper reports on an interesting new kind of cafe culture happening in Paris. There is a spirit of health and wellness that is permeating new cafes which are more about deep relaxation and healthy eating than smoking, drinking and coffee. Organic food is the standard at these establishments, and to add to their stress-reducing nature, they all offer massages as an added service. Pictured above is the No Stress Cafe, which has their massage chair right in the center of the dining room.
Click through to see the whole list here.

If you still have the disposable income to buy Chanel, Yves Saint Laurent and Stella McCartney, you might also want to buy a plane ticket to Paris and visit a new store in the Marais called Merci. The shop is the brainchild of high-end childrenswear designers Bonpoint, who decided to use their fashion industry muscles to do a little good in the world. They’ve stocked their store with custom pieces by some of the world’s most coveted designers, donating 100% of the profit to a children’s cause in Madagascar (does anyone know which one? Would love a link).
We love to [...]

PATACHROMO, a brilliant installation by French artists Superbien, was based on the principles of CHROMOtherapy seen through the lense of PATAphysics . Presented as a succession of animated light frames lasting about 2 minutes each, the PATACHROMO program is provided as a tool for passers-by to face the grey Parisian winter weather with more serenity. How? According to the project page on Superbien’s website: “by exposing one’s chakras to the light diffused by the LED structure of the installation (covering a surface of 6.65 sq meters).”
We love the idea of walking down a dark and lonely Parisian street and stumbling [...]

Guy Limone is a Paris-based artist whose works offer fresh, perspective-shifting ways of looking at the world around us. Some of his most notable pieces bring census data to life through creative illustrations comprised of figurines and installations. The piece above, called ’My 225 Square Meter in Paris’, reflects the average living space of a Parisian in 2004. The piece below, part of his exhibition “Inferencias” on show at GACMA in 2008, depicts the growth of Spain’s population through hand-painted, brightly colored figurines engaged in various, sometimes absurd, activities.

[via designboom]

Theft and vandalism are threatening the success of Paris’s Velib bike rental scheme.  Eighteen months into project and over half of the initial 15,000 bikes have vanished.  Despite being used over 42 million times, JCDecaux, the company behind the project, is warning the high costs of replacing bikes lost will force them to terminate their initial ten year contract.
Velib Extreme is another force spurring the Velib bike vandalism. The BBC reports:
Various videos have appeared on YouTube showing riders taking the bikes down the steps in Montmartre, into metro stations and being tested on BMX courses.
Remi Pheulpin, JCDecaux’s director general, says the [...]

More than 300 licensed street artists carry on the traditions of painting in the Parisian quarter of Montmartre, adding to the allure and romance of the city, but the increasing appearance of imported knock-offs in galleries and shops is putting their livelihoods at risk. These assembly line style paintings are mass-produced in parts of Asia and Eastern Europe and sold in other countries for a fraction of what these artists can charge for their original pieces.
This situation sheds light on the complex cause and effect involved in every dollar that we spend. Lost in the discussions surrounding sustainable and socially [...]

In a post called ‘Is Youthful Rebellion Back?’, Ed Cotton of Influx suggests that we’d be foolish to see the activities of the kids of Paris as a global trend: