International Street Artist Gives Mumbai, Kochi & Goa A New Look

The facades of peeling plaster walls across the globe have become the favourite backdrop for Julien de Casabianca and his mission to ‘free’ select paintings from the confines of museums. No, he doesn’t steal paintings, instead the 46-year-old journalist and filmmaker creates prints of paintings and pastes them on city walls that act as dynamic backdrops — so far he’s made it to 40 cities in 19 countries since embarking on this project in 2014.

This effort, known as the Outings Project, exposes the general public to beautiful art, free of museum shackles. It’s not like Casabianca dislikes museums, it’s just that he finds many museums are inherently classist, from entry fees to desired edicate. Casabianca wants people to be free to enjoy art during day to day life and he wants paintings to be free of their usual white-wash backgrounds and have a more interesting second home. If you think about it, he’s kind of like a law-abiding Robin Hood of paintings, giving art to people who need it more, as well as, giving the art a chance to be appreciated by a whole new audience.

“Museums are about knowledge and preciousness, but when I take that one character out of the museum and give it to the street, the painting loses all questions of knowledge and value, it becomes only beauty,” de Casabianca commented to Scroll.

Casabianca’s approach to the project is to place the art in poorer neighborhoods where he feels people not only enjoy it more, but have a greater need for it. He also prefers to paste pictures of anonymous people, as he doesn’t want viewers to misinterpret his project to have a religious subtext or any underlying agenda other than the aim for people to enjoy the image. Moreover, Casabianca does not use paintings protected by copyright and only uses the work of artists that have passed away more than 70 years ago. These restrictions actually make his project more interesting as he fleshes out paintings that are lesser known but still feature great talent.

Some of his best work took place in India, where the lucky cities Kochi, Goa and Mumbai were the locales for nine of Casabianca’s installations, featuring solely Indian artists. From the paintings he chose, we can see Casabianca definitely has an affinity for Mughal miniatures, displaying a portrait of Prince Khurram in Goa and a painting of Prince Shah Shuja in Mumbai. Although Casabianca makes an effort to stay away from religious figures, he couldn’t resist pasting the Hindu goddess Kali in the form of Mundamalini. The remaining portraits feature anonymous figures, which are more inline with Casabianca usual aesthetic.

So many people around the world have smiled at the sight of Casabianca work it goes to show the power of art is sometimes weakened when trapped between four walls, and perhaps brings more joy when it lives on a city wall, becoming a tapestry of the street. Check out the entire Outing Project here.

All Images Courtesy of Outings Project.