Jean Starck (b. 1948) Mixed media on canvas, Frésque composed of 5 canvases. Signed and dated: J.Starck 011 Year of realization: 2011 Dimensions: H:150; L:310 cm A major figure in the French underground, in 1979 he co-founded the "Art Cloche" movement, which grew out of a revolt by homeless people who took over a disused building in the 14th arrondissement of Paris, where bombs had been stored during the Second World War. The initial occupants were immediately joined by a first wave of artists without studios. Workshops were created as other artists from abroad moved in, looking for a place to paint. For the better part of a decade, this first post-modern art squatting movement would give rise to a new, heterogeneous, poetic, protesting, insolent art form, with which Jean Starck would become closely associated. The first works of primitive urban art were thus created. Jean Starck uses a technique known as cut-up, taking fragments from the works of other squatters and assembling them like a patchwork quilt. Thanks to the dissonance resulting from the variety of styles and materials, the unity of design dear to traditional artists is destroyed. The materials used are modest, of course, as they are generally salvaged, the artist being a reunifier of society's refuse.