Saturday 26 October 2013

Queueing for three hours (Tour Paris 13)


Last day in Paris. After a lazy morning, I arrived at Tour Paris 13. Tour Paris 13 is an abandoned apartment block in Paris 13th district by the river Seine. At arrival I saw the big crowd outside the building queueing for entrance. It's a grey and cold Sunday in October and I find my place in the queue.

Tour Paris 13 on the quai d'Austerlitz. Calligraffiti by eL Seed
Tour Paris 13 is an unique exhibition for street art. About hundred international artists have used seven months to paint the building and apartments inside. 4500 square meeters over 9 floors. I would really like to see this.

piece by Tore
The queue moved really slowly and I got to know that they only let 45 people inside at the time. After 1 hour I had just moved some meters.

Dan23 portrait and Elseed Calligraffiti
The organisers believes it is the largest temporary street art and graffiti project of its kind and open for one month, October 2013. The building is planned to be demolished by the end of the year, but there are still people who refuse to move out. After two hours in line, I was starting to loose hope. Two hours to closing time and people around was restless. We began to think that this would not go. Some left, but I decided to stay for a while more. This was my last opportunity to see this during my visit to Paris this time.

After three hours it was beginning to get dark and it began to rain. A security person came by and told that we would not be able to enter before closing time. We were wet, cold and hungry and I realized that I would never see this exhibition inside. I was really disapointed. Can't be lucky every time. I had a good time in the line and learned something important: The project and street art is way more popular than I had anticipated, and I have to plan more carefully around this next time.

Mona Lisa by Inti
Relaxing on fron of a piece by Kazar
Raiden by STeW


After a while the crowd dissolved and many went dissapointed home that evening. I got a feeling of the project at least and took photos of the works outside.

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