COMPLETED OFFERING: ZEVS

Released 14/11/2025 - 9 AM CET

The French artist Zevs (born Christophe Aguirre Schwarz) is a pivotal figure in the street art movement, known for his bold interventions in urban spaces and his distinctive approach to brand critique. He was born in Saverne, France, in 1977, and lives and works in Paris.

Zevs began as a graffiti artist in Paris in the 1990s, using various pseudonyms such as 'The Shadow Flasher' and 'The Serial Ad Killer'. His pseudonym 'Zevs' - pronounced 'Zeus' - refers to a train that almost ran him over while tagging in 1992.

Since his early days working on the streets of Paris during the 1990s, Zevs has become one of the most prominent figures on the contemporary street art scene, along with other French artists such as Andre and Invader.

Zevs is best known for his trademark ‘Liquidation’ technique, in which he transforms seemingly solid images into evocatively dripping ones that are perhaps more unstable than they seem. He has experimented with various methods in his graffiti, canvases, and performances that help him to subvert the ubiquitous, commercially driven and Hollywood-driven culture of the 21st century.

From city sidewalks to gallery walls, Zevs reacts to urban signs and consumer codes, questioning public space, art, and the relationship between art and consumerism.

In the past, this has included a high-profile ‘kidnapping’ of a figure from a billboard, an infamous arrest following his creation of a large-scale mural of a liquidated Chanel logo in Hong Kong, and his “Visual Violations” series, in which he blurred out the faces of figures like Jim Morrison and Marilyn Monroe. With his work, Zevs offers a commentary on the lasting widespread influence of these figures, as well as corporate logos ranging from Louis Vuitton to Coca-Cola to Apple, on contemporary culture. No matter what he does to them, these images are instantly recognizable to nearly everyone.

In 2008, Zevs held his first solo museum exhibition, “Electroshock”, at the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek, a classical art museum in Copenhagen, Denmark. The exhibition featured works from all his major series up to that point, displayed alongside masterpieces from the museum's permanent collection, including Édouard Manet's The Absinthe Drinker and Auguste Rodin's The Thinker.

In 2009, Zevs held his first solo exhibition in Asia, “Liquidated Logos”, at the Hong Kong-based gallery Art Statements, showcasing his clever distortions of major brand logos.

In 2010, his work was featured at the Moscow Biennial.

In 2011, Zevs had his first solo exhibition in New York, “Liquidated Version”, at De Buck Gallery, continuing his artistic commentary on corporate influence. The exhibition featured well-known brands such as Coca-Cola and Louis Vuitton, along with financial institutions such as Morgan Stanley, Merrill Lynch, Lehman Brothers, and Goldman Sachs. Many works showcased Zevs’s signature liquidation technique, visually dissolving logos before viewers' eyes and creating a distinctive dripped effect.

In 2016, expanding on his exploration of liquidated and dripping logos, Zevs introduced another landmark body of work — the “Big Oil Splash” series (also known as “Swimming Pools”) — inspired by David Hockney’s iconic 1967 painting “A Bigger Splash.” This bold series offers a critique of globalization and the oil industry and was first unveiled at Lazarides Gallery.

His work has been featured in numerous museum exhibitions over the years, including the Palais de Tokyo, Centre Pompidou, and the Louvre in Paris, as well as MoCA Shanghai, Hangaram Art Museum, and Ulsan Museum in Seoul. In 2027, Zevs will be the subject of a major retrospective at the Wood Art Institute in Hamburg.

Selected Solo Shows:

·   2026/2027 – Upcoming

A retrospective exhibition at the Wood Art Institute (WAI), Hamburg, Germany is scheduled for spring/summer 2027

A solo exhibition at CAFA Art Museum, Beijing, China – project being discussed

A solo show at the Museum of Contemporary Art Shanghai (MoCA Shanghai) – Date to be confirmed

A solo exhibition at Watowa Gallery, Tokyo, Japan – Date to be confirmed

A solo exhibition at New Galerie, Paris, France – Date to be confirmed

A sculpture has been commissioned and will be produced as part of an artist residency at Renault Group’s new factory, Boulogne-Billancourt, France – Date to be confirmed

·   2025

“Sans Titre (permanent)”, Centre Pompidou, Paris, France

A multi-phase project featuring new installations and performances unveiled monthly, both inside the galleries and outside the building, leading up to the museum’s temporary closure for renovations  

“Sombras Electricas”, Alliance Française, Havana, Cuba

·   2024

“Minimal Painting”, Galerie Torri, Paris, France

“Visual Overdose”, Art installation at Art Basel Paris, The Invisible Gallery, Paris, France

“Temporary Sanctuary”, Over the Influence Gallery, Bangkok, Thailand

·   2023

“Room 711”, Hangaram Art Museum - Seoul Art Centers, Seoul, South Korea

“Voleur d’Image - Magie du Louvre”, Musée du Louvre, Paris France

·   2022

“Le Serpent Cosmique”, Lille3000 - Musée de l’Hospice Comtesse, Lille, France

“Tumultes”, La Collégiale Saint-Pierre-le-Puellier, curated by Danysz Gallery, Orléans, France

“Berlin, nos années 20”, Centre Pompidou, Paris, France

·   2021

“Oikos Logos”, MAMO Centre d’Art de la Cité Radieuse, Marseille, France

“Phillip Morris Still Life Locked Room” - permanent installation, CCA Andratx, Mallorca, Spain

“The Last Cowboy is Dead”, New Galerie, Paris, France

·   2019

“15th Biennale de Lyon”, Musée d’Art Contemporain, Lyon France

“Aguirre Schwarz Savoure le Rouge”, New Galerie, Paris, France

·   2018

“Aguirre Schwarz aka Zevs: Supreme Même”, Over the Influence Gallery, Hong Kong, China

·   2017

“Zevs: Liquid Assets”, Taglialatella Galleries, New York, USA

·   2016

“Noir Éclair”, Château de Vincennes, Vincennes, France

“The Big Oil Splash”, Lazarides Gallery, London, UK

·   2015

“Zevs: Elle”, De Buck Gallery, New York, USA

”Aguirre Schwarz au Pays de l’Or Noir”, Galerie Rive Gauche, Marcel Strouk, Paris France

“The Autobiography of Aguirre Schwarz. An Exhibition by Zevs”, CCA Andratx, Mallorca, Spain

Selected Group Shows:

·   2025

“The Line”, Underdogs Gallery, Paris, France

“Effets Indésirables (Side Effects)”, New Gallery, Paris, France

“Shared Horizons”, X Havana Biennial, Havana, Cuba

·   2024

“Why is Urban Art Now: From Bangucheon to Urban Art”, Ulsan Art Museum, Ulsan, South Korea

“Monomythology”, The Hole Gallery, New York, USA

“Netflix and Chill”, New Gallery, Paris, France

“2024 Urban Art Biennale”, Völklingen Ironworks (UNESCO World Heritage Site), Völklingen, Germany

“Sous Influence”, New Gallery, Paris, France

·   2023

“BIENALSUR”, Babel Mallorca, Mallorca, Spain

“Module of Temporality (MOT)”, Danysz Gallery - launch of new cultural center, Kiev, Ukraine

·   2022

“Capitales: 60 d’art urbain à Paris”, Hôtel de Ville, Paris, France

“Wonderwalls”, NRW-Forum Düsseldorf - Museum Kunstpalast, Düsseldorf, Germany

“2022 Urban Art Biennale”, Völklingen Ironworks (UNESCO World Heritage Site), Völklingen, Germany

·   2021

“Swimming Pool - Troubled Water”, Künstlerhaus Bethanien, Berlin, Germany

·   2020

“Wall”, Urban Spree, Berlin, Germany

“Aguirre Schwarz / Zevs: Atone Etoile”, Confort Moderne, Poitiers, France

·   2019

“Post Contemporary - Urban Graphics 7019 ”, Museum of Contemporary Art (MoCA), Shanghai , China

“Who Cares”, New Galerie, Paris, France

·   2018

“Art From The Streets”, ArtScience Museum, Singapore, Singapore

·   2017

“What’s Up Doc”, New Galerie, Paris, France

“Dessins Perturbateurs”, Galerie Métropolis, Paris, France

·   2016

“Painting Is Dead. Long Live Painting”, CCA Andratx, Mallorca, Spain

·   2015

“Summer in the City”, Martin Asbaek Gallery, Copenhagen, Denmark

This painting belongs to the “Richard Prince: Apocalypse Cowboy” series, which comprises four works — Mad Max, Soylent Green, Hieronymus Bosch, and John Martin. In this series, Zevs reinterprets the Marlboro cowboys made iconic by Richard Prince in the mid-1970s, transforming them into four distinct apocalyptic visions. Together, these paintings form a contemporary allegory of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.

By reintroducing the liquidated Marlboro logo, Zevs transforms the cowboy into a symbol of a collapsing world. Positioned at the crossroads of history painting, capitalist critique, and dystopian cinema, these works blur the lines between art, advertising, and societal decay.