i don't know how many times i'd walked past #59 rue de rivoli throughout my five months here in paris - either to shop, to eat, or just to wander. i can't believe it took me so long to discover this building. must've had my eyes on the ground & my head in the clouds...
59 rivoli is an artist's after squat that began some time in 1999, when three frenchies bought the abandoned 6-story building and decided to put it to good use - transforming the space into somewhere for artists to create, exhibit, live & enrich paris' art scene.
you first walk in after being directed by "
visite obligatoire" (visit mandatory) signs & arrows, walk across a doormat made out of 1c & 2c pieces, before heading on up the spiral staircases of
59 rivoli...
everyone i talked to here was so friendly & so happy to take time out of painting/sketching/sculpting to have a chat. there's around thirty artists at
59 rivoli - some of them share studios, create group artworks or just do their own thing.
they all got together and redecorated the place because naturally, when they first moved in - the place was a total dump. one of the artists who's been there since the beginning described to me how their was rubble everywhere, disused office furniture, dead animals, crumbling & collapsing walls, etc. nowadays, every wall surface is splashed with colour - from photos to sketches, graffiti tags to hanging strips of material, from the hundreds of painted '59's to my favourite - a continuous painting of a dragon that follows you up the spiral staircase, right up to the 6th floor.
next door to 59 rivoli (but still part of the same brainchild) is the official exhibition space, where both french & international artists display their works.
59 rivoli (technically pronounced '
cinquante-neuf rivoli', not fifty-nine) reminded me alot of
tacheles, the artist's squat in berlin - except that the parisian version is much younger, has a broader variety of artwork & is alot 'lighter' both in its physical appearance and its demeanour.
so passes another day, another place, another experience...another reason to love paris.
bises,
S.
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| pedestrians: mandatory change of route |
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| 1c, 2c... |
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| "follow the dragon" |
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| "where do we come from? what are we doing? where are we going?" |
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| "become what you seek, and it shall find you..." |
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| "walls & whispers" |
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| view from the top floor out across paris. ceramic chimney pots in the back. |
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| view from above... |
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| ...& view from below |
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| "i'm a lucky charm" |
