French street artist’s Shanghai show ‘speaks to the child in the adult’

The work of Julien Malland, who paints under the name Seth, can be seen in the old alleyways of Shanghai, in – as the artist puts it – “Beijing, the mountains of Sichuan near Tibet, in Xinjiang, Fengjing, at three schools in Taiwan”, and in Tahiti, Indonesia and Cambodia.

Now it can also be seen at the Museum of Contemporary Art (MoCA) in Shanghai, where his first solo show in China, “Like Child’s Play”, has just opened. Inside the museum are 10 major pieces (including five sculpture installations) but included in the exhibition are some of the distinctively youthful images the French artist has painted around the city.

“I speak to the child in the adult … The way that kids see the world is not about innocence. It’s more of a true and direct way to see life. The way they are is what they are, they don’t hide it and I like this. All my life I try to be like this,” he says.

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Context is important for the muralist and street artist. Often playfully incorporating the surroundings into the larger image, he’ll use a doorway, a window or a crumbling wall as part of the scene he sets with his signature figures: innocent, nostalgic and often contemplative.