Overview
If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound? If 50 of the world's most renowned street artists transform a derelict, glamorous 19th-century bathhouse-turned-nightclub into a temporary gallery space but no-one sees it, does it even exist?
Paris's historic Les Bains-Douches building is steeped in history — built in 1885 as a civic bathhouse where Marcel Proust reportedly enjoyed a morning dip, the grandiose space became a pumping discotheque in the late '70s, until some overzealous renovation attempts led to the iconic club's closure in 2010. It's set to reopen as a mystery venue in 2014, but for now owner Jean Pierre-Marois has invited a stable of prominent urban artists, commissioned by the Magda Danysz Gallery, to reimagine the soon-to-be demolished space.
Les Bain's fleeting metamorphosis as a gallery space will never open to the public; instead it's memorialised exclusively in the online exhibition platform Un Artiste Un Jour ('One day one artist), as captured by photographers Stephane Bisseuil and Jerome Coton.
Perhaps a throwback to the pleasure-seeking days of disco when Les Bains was a playground for the debauchery of Andy Warhol, Yves Saint Laurent, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Grace Jones, Kate Moss, Mick Jagger and Johnny Depp, the beautifully decaying artwork is here for a good time, not a long time. Hedonistic? Perhaps, but what is art if not beauty for beauty's sake alone.
Take a sneak peek below, no fake ID necessary.
Image credits: Sambre, Lek and Sowat, Thomas Canto, Jeanne Susplugas, Joachim Sauter, Sten Lex, Zeer by Jerome Coton and Stephane Bisseuil. See more images here.