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Photo by: Stephanie Bisseuil | C215

Nearly 130 years old, Les Bains was originally a municipal bath house where folks like Marcel Proust like to take a steam. From the late 1970s, it transformed (via a design by a young Philippe Stark) into one of the key venues for new wave and rock acts and celebrity scenesters. Joy Division played Les Bains. But by May 2010, the structure of the space was deemed too dangerous for occupation. While its owner Jean-Pierre Marois jumps into the restoration—the plan is to make it private residences/hotel/club called La Societe Des Bains—he temporarily turned the space into a canvas for fifty urban artists (Futura, Mr. Brainwash, Jef Aerosol, Mosko et associés, L'Atlas and so many more) commissioned by gallerist Magda Danysz. While the building remains closed to the public, one can still browse an incredible ranges of works graving the walls of the building via the Les Bains website's artist-a-day blog. The contrasting approaches make for a buzzy contemporary survey with a Parisian perspective.

To find out more, visit LesBains-Paris.com

 

Photos by Stephane Bisseuil and Jerome Coton 


Jef Aerosol


Zeer

Sambre

Mosko et associes


Clone

Baudelocque


Space Invader
L'Atlas