Zevs

Zevs (pronounced Zeus), born Christopher Aghirre Schwarz on 17th November, 1977 in Saverne is a French street artist.

He began painting in the streets of Paris during late 80's and in 1991, he escaped an accident with the Parisian suburban train, this is when he found his artist name, which was inspired by the name of the train, Zeus. Initially he painted shadows and silhouettes of the Parisian street furniture, then he discovered the technique of "reverse graffiti" which involves cleaning the dirty walls of the city and showing this aspect through drawing on those areas which were cleaned. He uses visible paint with ultraviolet rays. He joined forces with the artist Invader in 1999 and dedicated himself to the city of Montpellier under the pseudonym @nonymous.

Zevs's aim is to illustrate the influence of celebrities and multinationals on the contemporary culture. A good example would be his « Liquidated Logos » series, where he transforms logos of international brands, and his project in 2004 « Visual Kidnapping », where he leaves the message «Visual Kidnapping pay now!!», after having ripping the muse poster of Café Lavazza, fifteen meters in height at Alexanderplatz in Berlin.

His work has been displayed in New York, Palais de Tokyo in Paris and major exhibition was dedicated to him at chateau de Vincennes early 2016, where his photos, installations, videos, sculptures and paintings were presented.