Street art, graffiti: 2014’s 10 greatest urban artists

Street art, graffiti, urban art fairs… Artists keep getting talked about online. Nowadays, who are the major figures of this new trend? Artistik Rezo has gathered 18 art professionals to pick up the most renowned contemporary street and graffiti artists. Our participants’ selection has enabled us to draw a roll of the 10 most influential French urban artists and the 10 most significant international ones. Our experts’ standards remain quite subjective: they favoured talent, technique, fame, visibility in art institutions, and market value. Above all, our professionals gave priority to their artistic sensibility. The results we present here do not indicate who the ‘best’ urban artists of the moment are. Instead, they reflect personal choices, putting forward noteworthy street and graffiti art leading figures. Who, then, falls into this category?

Top 10 French urban artists
French contemporary artists (or French residents) in 2014

1) Invader
2) JR
3) C215
4) JonOne
5) Rero
6) Zevs
7) Ludo
8) Jef Aérosol
9) Dran
10) Seth

Top 10 international urban artists
International contemporary artists (including French ones) in 2014

1) Banksy
2) Shepard Fairey
3) Swoon
4) Os Gêmeos
5) Vhils
6) Blu
7) Futura 2000
8) Invader
9) JR
10) Inti and Seen (equal rank)

Readers will probably not be very much surprised by this roll, since major contemporary artists can be found here, notably the most active ones. However, Blek le Rat and Speedy Graphito do not feature in the French top 10. Both artists are less at the forefront or newsworthy. Besides, graffiti artists seem less important in these rankings, because their artistic practice is less market-driven. Also apparent is the low representation of French artists on the international stage, except JR and Invader, both very active abroad.

They contributed to the rankings:

Mehdi Ben Cheikh (Itinerrance gallery director) ; Jérôme Catz (curator and author of Street art, mode d’emploi, Flammarion publishing) ; Stéphane Chatry (curator, artists’ manager, Patricia Dorfmann gallery associate director) ; Nicolas Chenus (Graffiti Art Magazine publishing director) ; Philippe Danjean (art dealer) ; Magda Danysz (Magda Danysz gallery director) ; Alain-Dominique Gallizia (art dealer, co-curator of the exhibition ‘Tag’ at the Grand Palais) ; David Maquis-art (Cornette de Saint-Cyr urban art expert, maquis-art.com director) ; Nicolas Laugero Lasserre (art dealer, Espace Pierre Cardin director, Artistik Rezo creator) ; Pierre Lecaroz (Street-Art Bordeaux creator) ; Christophe Legros (Street art Paris) ; Stéphanie Lemoine (journalist, art critic, street art and graffiti expert) ; Samantha Longhi (Graffiti Art Magazine chief editor) ; Valériane Mondot (Taxie Gallery director) ; Céline Neveux (curator of the exhibition ‘Beyond street art’ at the Musée de la Poste) ; Arnaud Oliveux (Artcurial auctioneer) ; Sophie Pujas (independent journalist – Le Point, Artistik Rezo –, writer) ; Henri Thuaud (art dealer, art editor, blogger).