Brought in from the street…MISS. TIC at the French Institute

From the pavement of the Ku’damm you can view through the French Institute’s façade-spanning windows the paintings of Miss.Tic, hanging unusually on the gallery’s interior walls. As one of the very few women amongst the street art scene, it is somehow bizarre to view her work inside a gallery space.

At the private view, Miss.Tic tagged a wall of the Institute using one of her famous stencils. A French Berliner in front of me in the queue had brought along photos of the walls of her former neighborhood in Paris for Miss. Tic to autograph… A street art fan entering a gallery space. Of course, when Miss.Tic autographs her book for you, she stamps it, and it means much more than her handwriting next to it.

Miss. Tick is the French name of ‘Magica De Spell’ from Walt Disney’s Duck Tales. As a child I always found Miss. Tick to be the most intriguing one, with her long dark hair and black dress; much more feminine and mysterious a character than Daisy with her pink bow. Sharp text accompanies Miss Tic’s glamorous, sexily dressed women- poetic wordplay that calls into question life, love and the roles of women. Most of it is in French, so if you slept during your French classes at school, here’s one in English for you…