PARISIAN STREET ARTIST WILL NOT FACE JAIL TIME
Franco-Swiss street artist Thomas Vuille, who was arrested for doing graffiti in Paris’s Gare du Nord, will not face jail time, according to Le Figaro. Known as Monsieur Chat (Mr. Cat), for the yellow grinning felines he paints all over France, Vuille has said that his work is intended to “beautify the lives of his fellow citizens.” This past September France’s national railway company, SNCF, initiated legal proceedings against the artist for “degradation of material.” For his marker drawing of a cat, four roses, and a bird, made on a temporary plasterboard partition used to hide construction inside the train station, Vuille will still have to pay a fine of nearly $550.
In 2004, Vuille was the subject of Chris Marker’s documentary, The Case of the Grinning Cat. Marker used Vuille’s cheshire cat smiles, which he documented at political rallies and on buildings and sidewalks across France, as a way to show poetry in the streets.
