Leo & Pipo

{Image above via Street Art Paris}

I’m not very musically inclined, which isn’t to say I don’t like music, just that it’s not a language I’m very fluent in. I love going to concerts and listening to albums, but if you asked me anything beyond a superficial question about my tastes, I wouldn’t have much to say. But I’ve been paying more attention to music for a couple of upcoming stories, and trying to understand how musicians see their art.

When I came across the work of Leo and Pipo, two street artists in Paris, I was drawn to their series of portraits pasted to walls around the city strictly for their visual qualities. But when I read a bit more about how the work came into being, I was even more charmed by it. The pair, whose history began by playing music together, sees these portraits as a direct derivation of their musical experiments. When putting songs together they’d draw from music from the 1920s, ’40s, and ’50s, and combine it with modern sound. A musical collage. It’s easy to see how their portraits are a derivation of their music. In their own words: “Our idea is to place old photographs on a modern background and observe if the combination can create a new meaning.” I love the concept behind this work, and how it speaks to a non-musician like me. Read more about this street-art duo in an interview at Street Art Paris.

{Image above via Leo & Pipo}

Tagged as: artists, installations, portraits