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PARIS

Paris street art legend Miss.Tic dies aged 66

Miss.Tic, whose provocative work began cropping up in the Montmartre neighbourhood of Paris in the mid-80s and made her a pioneer of French street art, died on Sunday aged 66, her family told AFP.

Paris street art legend Miss.Tic dies aged 66
French artist Miss.Tic posing in her studio in Paris. Photo by Bertrand GUAY / AFP

Radhia Novat grew up in the narrow streets in the shadow of Sacre-Coeur basilica, the daughter of a Tunisian father and a mother from Normandy in western France, where she began stencilling sly and emancipatory slogans.

Her family said she had died of an unspecified illness.

Other French street artists paid tribute to her work.

On Twitter, street artist Christian Guemy, alias C215, hailed “one of the founders of stencil art”. The walls of the 13th arrondissement of Paris – where her images are a common sight – “will never be the same again”, he wrote.

Another colleague, “Jef Aerosol” said she had fought her final illness with courage, in a tribute posted on Instagram.

And France’s newly appointed Culture Minister, Rima Abdul Malak, saluted her “iconic, resolutely feminist” work.

Miss.Tic’s work often included clever wordplays — almost always lost in translation — and a heroine with flowing black hair who resembled the artist herself. The images became fixtures on walls across the capital.

Miss. Tic with some examples of her work. Photo by Bertrand GUAY / AFP

“I had a background in street theatre, and I liked this idea of street art,” Miss.Tic said in a 2011 interview.

“At first I thought, ‘I’m going to write poems’. And then, ‘we need images’ with these poems. I started with self-portraits and then turned towards other women,” she said.

Miss.Tic also drew the attention of law enforcement over complaints of defacing public property, leading to an arrest in 1997.

But her works came to be shown in galleries in France and abroad, with some acquired by the Paris modern art fund of the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, according to her website.

And cinema buffs will recognise her work on the poster for Claude Chabrol’s 2007 film “La fille coupee en deux” (“A Girl Cut in Two”).

For a spell she was a favourite of fashion brands such as Kenzo and Louis Vuitton.

“So often it’s not understood that you can be young and beautiful and have things to say,” she told AFP in 2011.

“But it’s true that they sell us what they want with beautiful women. So I thought, I’m going to use these women to sell them poetry.”

Her funeral, the date of which is still to be announced, will be open to the public, said her family.

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PARIS

Notre-Dame rebuild ‘meeting deadline and budget’

Paris's Notre-Dame Cathedral, ravaged by fire in 2019, is on track to re-open on time on December 8th, the head of the reconstruction said on Wednesday.

Notre-Dame rebuild 'meeting deadline and budget'

“We are meeting deadlines and budget,” Philippe Jost, who heads the public body overseeing the project, told a French Senate committee.

The fire at the UNESCO-listed cathedral, which welcomed 12 million visitors a year, shocked the world on April 15, 2019.

Jost praised the work of the 250 companies and artist groups involved in the reconstruction, which began in spring 2022 after rubble had been cleared and the foundations secured at a cost of €150 million.

He said the budget for the reconstruction phase was expected to stay below the foreseen €550 million, leaving another €150 million unspent from the huge pot of donations that poured in after the fire.

The surplus will go towards “urgent” restoration of the cathedral’s stone exterior to be carried out from 2025, Jost said.

The spire, which dramatically collapsed five years ago, is once again visible on the Paris skyline following the recent removal of its scaffolding.

The installation of the lead roof is ongoing on its solid oak frame, rebuilt with doweled wood and no metal bolts according to techniques dating back hundreds of years.

“The restoration will last for at least 860 years,” said Jost, referring to how long the cathedral had survived from its initial completion in 1163.

In addition to sprinkler systems, each section of the wooden frame has been “compartmentalised” to prevent any future fire from spreading, Jost said.

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