Alain Dominique Gallizia

Architects are the first street artists but they are not the only ones. The walls that will bear their signature for eternity are surrounded by new media: the blank canvases for a lightning art that is destined for destruction. I wanted to repair this injustice by offering these artists a lasting medium for their work: a simple canvas. The first artist I met was writing "love" on the walls and pavements of houses he visited. This became the theme for the first work I commissioned, and ultimately for all those that followed. A single format: a canvas in two parts, each 60cm high by 180cm long, with the artist’s signature on the left and their illustration of the word "love" on the right. A single venue, a door left open to these artists: my own studio, a vast carriage open to the stars, on the outskirts of Paris. The next step was to convince these artists to take part in this simple venture, which they did in all trust by leaving an indelible trace on a canvas that would stretch from street to museum. I would like to thank them. They have set in motion an adventure that will never end. What is more an assembly than a collection, with its unity of time, place, format and theme, is a first in the history of art. The authors, not their works, were chosen. Here, art is neither bought nor sold but made with each request. The encounter with the artist is the first reward, discovering the work is always the second. No one work resembles another; only the theme and the format are the same. Each is the imprint of a movement, a reminder of a presence. The result is a history of history itself, which I invite you to discover…