Stencil art, pop graffiti, and contemporary sculpture: with “Contemporary Bestiaries,” GA Smart Building offers an artistic dialogue between two locations, centered on a shared perspective on the animal world.
Since January 2026, GA Smart Building has presented the contemporary art exhibition “Contemporary Bestiaries” at two of its sites, in Paris and Toulouse, with an artistic program designed to resonate between the two locations. The exhibition was created in collaboration with Renting Art. Specializing in the rental of contemporary art exhibitions, Renting Art supports companies in integrating artistic initiatives within their workspaces by offering turnkey exhibitions, physical or digital artworks, and collaborative and cultural formats tailored to the professional environment.
The exhibition highlights animals through various practices drawn from street art, combining stencil work, urban painting, and sculpture. Blending imagination, commitment, and urban aesthetics, the artworks offer a renewed perspective on the animal world—seen in turn as a symbol of freedom, strength, fragility, or creativity.
In Paris: animal street art
Jo Di Bona – Pop Graffiti
An emblematic figure of the French street art scene, Jo Di Bona is known for a technique he developed himself: Pop Graffiti.
His work combines poster collage, spray painting, and references to popular culture, using a highly colorful palette that is instantly recognizable.
Through his artworks, the artist creates expressive and dynamic portraits, paying tribute to animals as well as anonymous figures and contemporary icons. His approach—conceived as accessible and popular art—reflects a generous and humanist vision of urban creation.
Blek le Rat – Stencil
A pioneer of urban art in France, Blek le Rat began intervening in public space in the early 1980s after discovering the first graffiti in New York. He quickly adopted the stencil technique, which he considered better suited to Parisian architecture.
His famous black rats, which have become his signature, represent freedom, the spread of art throughout the city, and a form of poetic rebellion. Present on walls around the world for more than thirty years, these animal figures have greatly contributed to establishing stencil art as a major language of contemporary street art.
Olivier Courty – Sculpture
Contemporary sculptor Olivier Courty explores the animal world through three-dimensional works, notably created in clay. Inspired by anatomy, movement, and the intensity of gazes, his work moves between figuration and abstraction.
His animal sculptures play with voids to suggest volume, expressing both the power and fragility of living beings. They reflect a constant search for spontaneity and realism, as well as a deep respect for the animal world.
Through these three complementary artistic universes, the exhibition “Contemporary Bestiaries” invites employees and visitors to discover a different way of looking at animals, at the crossroads of urban art, material expression, and imagination.
At Niwa, Toulouse: the animal figure as chimera
At Niwa, the headquarters and flagship building of GA Smart Building in Toulouse, the exhibition continues through the sculptural work of Patrick Schumacher.
Inspired by a personal journey between Europe and the Middle East, the artist reinterprets animal forms to create hybrid chimeras that are both playful and symbolic. Works such as Rhinozébrós, a rhinoceros with zebra stripes, embody this fusion of influences and question our relationship with living beings, identity, and cultural hybridity.
These sculptures resonate with the architecture and values promoted by GA Smart Building, particularly around resilience, hybridization, and respect for natural balances.
Through these two complementary exhibitions, “Contemporary Bestiaries” invites employees and visitors to take a renewed look at the animal world, at the intersection of urban art, contemporary sculpture, and workplace environments.
