Kriki

KRIKI (real name Christian Vallée) is a French artist born in Issy-les-Moulineaux in 1965. Currently lives and works in Paris.

The art critic Jean-Luc Chalumeau, author of numerous works on contemporary art, writes in the preface to Kriki’s monograph: “Founder, in 1984, of the group of visual artists Nuklé-Art and of the electro-punk music group Les Invahisseurs, Kriki still embodies punk culture in contemporary French art today. From 1984, the street with its stencils will be his art school, as well as the metro and its hacks of advertising displays. As a result, he participated in the foundation and emergence of what is now called Street Art. Immersed in alternative culture, his youthful avant-garde will immediately place him at the top of emerging artists to follow both in galleries and on the art market”.

Right from the start, Kriki covered the capital’s palisades and walls with the famous stencil “Hello Olga, There’s a stencil to erase” (Olga being the graffiti remover for the cleanliness department of the City of Paris). Immersed in alternative culture, Kriki participated from 1985 in the 2 km of wild frescoes that would awaken the industrial wastelands of the Canal de l’Ourcq. In 1986, the artist joined forces with Editions Parallèles for the publication of “Pochoirs à la Une”, which has now become the essential reference for stencil and Street Art pioneers. That same year, he took part in the historic sale “Young people landed” under the hammer of Master Binoche, alongside, among others, Keith Haring and Futura 2000.

From the outset, Kriki was identified as one of the emblematic figures of young French painting of the 80s. He participated in the emergence and foundation of Urban Art, long before the art world heard of Banksy. Nevertheless, Kriki belongs to this generational sensibility of the Free Figuration movement, of which he will contribute to its revitalization. Very soon after his “breaking and entering” into art, as he says himself, Kriki finds himself exhibiting alongside Wim Delvoye, Keith Haring, or Basquiat in galleries as famous as Guy Pieters Gallery (Knokke-Le -Zoute), Il Capricorno (Venice), and Enrico Navarra (Paris); or to participate in the very first exhibitions of today’s prestigious Parisian galleries such as Jérôme de Noirmont, Kamel Mennour, or even today Suzanne Tarasiève exhibiting Immendorff and Baselitz…

At 23, Kriki, a tutelary figure in Urban Art, will already have his first Solo Show at the FIAC, immediately imposing an immediately identifiable style on the international scene, making him one of the major young artists of his generation. In 1985, Kriki invented a character, the Fuzz, half-robot, half-polymorphic fetish, omnipresent, a real brand affixed, and of which the Museum of Modern Art of the City of Paris will produce an edition. This interest in the now iconic Fuzz will be relayed by the Maison Louis Vuitton, which, through ongoing sponsorship, will allow the realization of a large-scale project on the Fuzz and be presented at the Galerie Kamel Mennour in 2000. After many metamorphoses, the Fuzz and the figures that accompany it will reappear in the paintings in the form of viruses contaminating the history of art.

Today more than ever, Kriki’s work reveals worlds constructed by multiple cultural references made of the sedimentation of affects that punctuate his life as an artist. Indeed, Kriki mixes his universes, not hesitating inside complex architectures to connect between them characters of African masquerades with pompadours wearing sneakers, as well as breaker dancers with domestic robots. All his figures draw their identities from African rites, but also from Western classical art, Hip Hop culture, as well as robotics, in particular with the android Topo, a home automation guardian. As a result, this over-manipulation of original images from which his paintings come provokes a certain resistance to our first attempt at reading. Ernest Van Buyender, president of the Museum of Contemporary Art in Antwerp (Muhka) wrote “Kriki is the only French artist whose originality and ambition in his painting can be understood as a bridge between Subculture and Haute culture”. Kriki’s painting is that of hyper-connectivity, with jacks and other connection cables which, like so many energy flows, network his visionary worlds where his own aesthetic language joins a universal language.

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Kriki’s works

Kriki’s work is present in important and prestigious public and private collections: Museum of Modern Art of the City of Paris, Museum of Art and History / Belfort, Inka Bank / Geneva, Peter Stuyvesant Foundation / Amsterdam , Benedictine Palace / Fécamp, Seita Museum / Paris, Saint Vincent de Paul Hospital / Paris, General Motors Collection / Detroit.

Luxembourg Museum, Paris / Villa Saint Cyr Art Center, Bourg-La-Reine / Hôtel Bertrand Museum, Châteauroux / National Library of France, Paris / Museum of Contemporary Art, Shanghai… Kriki has been exhibited by the Galeries Loft, Paris / Enrico Navarra, Paris / Reflex Modern Art, Amsterdam / Il Capricorno, Venice / Riff Art, Paris and Istanbul, Nordine Zidoun, Luxembourg / Galerie du Center, Paris / Yvon Lambert Project, Paris / Guy Pieters Gallery, Knokke- Le-Zoute / Jerome de Noirmont, Paris / Kamel Mennour, Paris…

Kriki has participated in many Contemporary Art Fairs with One-man-shows for FIAC, Paris / Art Paris, Grand Palais, Paris / Pan Art Fair, Amsterdam / Contemporary Art Fair, Strasbourg / Art Feria, Bologna / Art Fair, Cologne / Gramercy Art Fair, New York / Young Art YA Art Fair, Miami.

Solo exhibitions (selection)

2025

Rodeo, Galerie Claire Gastaud, Paris, France

15th Summer Exhibition, Château de la Trémolière, France

2020

MEDIASE, Galerie Suzanne Tarasieve, Paris

2019

Commission: Punktude, “So Punk” event, Le Bon Marché / Rive Gauche, Paris

2018

Hybrid, Centre d’Art Contemporain de la Matmut, Saint-Pierre-de-Varengeville (catalogue)

2017

Limited edition (99 copies) Daumot 163 robot, Cristallerie Daum, Paris

Monumental sculpture Katielo, forecourt of the Grand Palais, Paris (International Biennial of Fine Crafts & Creation)

2016

Katielo, La Vague, Saint-Paul-de-Vence

Triptych La Fée Nucléaire (700 × 200 cm), Musée Picasso, Paris

2015

Ritual, Rize Art Gallery, Amsterdam

Art Up Fair, Lille

Rize Art Gallery, Amsterdam

2014

Domus, Galerie JCM Billy, La Baule

2013

Monumental sculpture Katielo (5 m)

Maskarade, Collégiale Saint-André, Chartres (catalogue)

Mascarade, Galerie du Centre, Paris

2012

Commission for Arjowiggins

FIAC, Grand Palais, Paris

2011

Art Paris, Solo Show, Grand Palais

Commission for 2K by Gingham, Los Angeles

2010

Polychromos, Galerie Riff Art Projects, Paris

Remix, Galerie JCM Billy, La Baule

2009

Lux Interior, Galerie Nordine Zidoun, Luxembourg

2008

Métamorfuzz, Musée Hôtel Bertrand, Châteauroux

Carnets de Dessins, Hôtel Coindon, Le Mans

Sculpture donated to the French Consulate, Yekaterinburg

Commission for a 5 m sculpture, Marrakech

2007

Demandez à un crapaud ce que c’est que la beauté…, Galerie du Centre, Paris
Art Paris, Solo Show, Grand Palais

PPP, Galerie Incognito, Paris

2006

From the Fall of the Berlin Wall to DMZ, Olympic Museum, Seoul

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, Musée Hôtel Bertrand, Châteauroux

2005

Commission: Musée du Luxembourg (Les Canotiers), Sénat, Paris Editions for the museum

Portfolio Le Fuzz (30 copies), Higgins Publisher

2004

Art Paris, One-man show with Erro and Peter Saul

Rur, Galerie du Centre, Paris

Private commission (tribute to Géricault), New York

Print editions, Croatia

2003

Recent Works, Zagreb Opera House

Poster for Swan Lake

Like a Retrospective, Villa Saint-Cyr

2001

Art Jonction, Nice (one-man show)

2000

Conference on Fuzz, National Museum of Natural History, Paris

Cryptozoologie 2, Galerie Kamel Mennour, Paris

1999

Unpublished Works, Galerie du Centre, Paris

Art Paris, Solo Show, Carrousel du Louvre

1998

Gramercy Art Fair, New York (Solo Show)

Project for Caisse des Dépôts, Paris

Cryptozoologie – The Apparition, Espace Pierre Cardin, Paris

1997

Fuzz Project (robot with Louis Vuitton)

Edition of 8 sculptures, Galerie Jérôme de Noirmont

1996

Recent Works, Palais Bénédictine, Fécamp

Dance d’Or trophies, MIDEM Cannes

Public commission, Saint-Vincent-de-Paul Hospital, Paris

1995

SIAC Strasbourg, Solo Show

Galerie Krief, Paris

1994

Documentary film (Fuji TV, Tokyo)

Sculpture Biennale, Amsterdam

1993

Salon Imagina, Monte-Carlo

FIAC, Solo Show, Grand Palais

Galerie Guy Pieters, Knokke

1992

Various commissions and editions (City of Paris, General Motors, Musée d’Art Moderne de Paris)

Sex, Rock, Games and Planets, Amsterdam

Modules, Venice

Virtual reality works (Canal+)

1991

Skeuds – Dead Vinyls 90s, Galerie Loft, Paris

1990

SAGA / FIAC, Solo Show

Amsterdam, Venice, Paris (Galerie Loft)

Sculpture commission, Geneva

1989

Young Painting Biennale, Cannes

FIAC, Solo Show, Grand Palais

1987

Rockacrylique, Belfort

Découpures, Galerie Loft, Paris

Arte Fiera, Bologna

FIAC, Solo Show

Festival Rock Création, Montreuil

1984

Founded Nuklé-Art painters group and Les Envahisseurs music group

Group exhibitions (selection)

2026

Galerie Claire Gastaud, Paris, France

2021

Figuration Libre (1980s), Musée des Beaux-Arts, Calais

Cité de la Dentelle et de la Mode, Calais

FIAC Online / FIAC OVR

Art Paris Art Fair, Grand Palais Éphémère, Paris

2020

Art Brussels, Belgium

2019

Woods, Galerie Suzanne Tarasieve, Paris

2018

Figuration Libre (1980s), Fonds Hélène & Édouard Leclerc, Landerneau

2017

Avenue des Arts Gallery, Los Angeles

13 Art Fair, Paris

Context Art Fair, Miami

2016

“40 Years of Passion”, Galerie du Centre, Paris / Novi Sad

Museum of Contemporary Art of Vojvodina, Serbia

Fondation Pierre Arnaud, Lens

2015

Art Liberté: From the Berlin Wall to Street Art, Paris

2014

Tribute, Galerie Saltiel, Aix-en-Provence

Kriki – Erro – Combas, Lyon

Art Up, Lille

Strasbourg Art Fair

2013

We Art Sunday, Paris

Château des Boulard

2012

Le Temps au Temps, Istanbul

On Both Sides of the Channel

Fans of the 80s

Art Élysées, Paris

2011

For the Love of Coca-Cola, Atlanta

Art Chicago

Contemporary Istanbul

Rize Art Gallery, Amsterdam

Lille Art Fair

2010

150 Years of The Angelus, Barbizon

Art Paris

Plural Generations, Béthune

2009

Contemporary Istanbul

40 Years of Figuration, Périgueux

Urgent: Living, Saint-Gervais

Artists for Freedom, Paris / Berlin / Moscow

2008

Lille Art Fair

International touring exhibition (Adidas & Sotheby’s), China

Carnets de Dessins, Le Mans

Champs-Élysées Art Exhibition, Paris

2007

Merci, Galerie Pixi, Paris

“34 Years of Passion”, Galerie du Centre

2006

Art Center Berlin Friedrichstrasse

BnF, Paris

The Hidden Face of the World, Prague

Yvon Lambert Project

2005

Nappes Frénétiques, Montreuil

2004

Artists for Freedom, United Nations, Geneva

2003

Centenary of Aviation (international airports)

Galerie Incognito, Sèvres

Art Fair Cologne

2001

“From One Generation to Another”, Paris

Absolute Secret, Tajan, Paris

Cologne Kunsthalle

Art & Sport Meeting

2000

Pleine Ligne, Paris

Animal Madness, Oyonnax

Please Do Touch, Malmö

City Hall, Angers

1999

Novotel Collection, Paris

Art & Porsche Meeting

1998

Nicosia Municipal Art Center, Cyprus

Inter-American Development Bank, Washington

1997

Arcos da Lapa, Rio de Janeiro

Works on Paper, Paris

1996

“30 Artists for Freedom”, Lyon

“14 July”, Paris

Polymer Chimeras, Nice

FIAC, Paris

1995

Micr’Art, Paris

Korean Art Fair

Saumur

Düsseldorf Art Fair

FIAC

1994

Turin, Ghent, Luxembourg, London, Ostend

General Motors commissions

1993

Art Concept, Saumur

Lasserre / Badoit project

1992

Galerie Marie Victoire Poliakoff, Paris

Peter Stuyvesant Foundation

Amsterdam

Art and Music, Paris

1991

Women in Contemporary Art, Paris / Toulouse

FIAC

1990

Decoded Art, Paris

“30 Artists for Freedom”

1989

Gitanes, Musée de la Seita, Paris

1988

Arte Fiera, Bologna

1987

History of Rocker, Paris

Attent’Art, Paris

Talking Wall Show, New York

1986

Young Artists Arrive, Drouot, Paris

Galeries Jean-Marc Patras & Agnès B

1985

Festival of Wild Painting, Bondy