In the very center of Paris, a huge artist squat has been attracting curious visitors for decades. But what is it, exactly? And who is the eccentric man upstairs who started it all? The Earful Tower’s intern Avery Lewis Stout meets Gaspard Delanoë himself for the full story.
On Rue du Rivoli, in the first arrondissement, there is a building that some people walk past without a second thought: 59 Rivoli. Take a step inside and you’ll find yourself in a 24-year-old art squat.
On the 5th floor, there’s a room that has become its own installation: Métro and museum tickets are stuck all over the walls, paintings are stacked and displayed, chairs and sofas are built into the room in between a taxidermied monkey and graffitied headless mannequins. This is where I sat to interview Gaspard Delanoë.
He explained that artists can find it hard to afford a place to live in Paris, let alone a studio. In the 1980s, squatting became part of the city’s art culture, artists would break into abandoned buildings and stay for a few months, working on their art together.
The first time Gaspard saw an art squat in France was in 1992, when he was 24, and he was amazed by how free the people seemed.
Immediately hooked, artist squats became a part of his life, and he began looking for them across Paris.
“I became interested in people getting together and working to create something really special,” he said as he waved to the visitors walking through his gallery, pausing briefly to explain to them he was doing an interview, asking them to be quieter.
He hopped around different squats in Paris until he heard about a building on Rue de Rivoli: “It was supposed to be impossible to break into. It’s right in the center of one of the most famous streets, it’s impossible… or it was supposed to be.”
On the 1st November 1999, three artists: Gaspard, Kalex and Bruno Dumont climbed through the window of an abandoned bank at 59 Rue de Rivoli. By the end of the week, the squat was full.
A group of around 30 artists were using it as their working studio, with some moving in full time to defend the building from other potential squatters.
“It’s a fragile thing,” Gaspard said. “As a squatter, you must protect your building.”
The state sued them and the squatters lost, but there was an 8 month administrative delay before they would be kicked out. The artists offered a proposition for the duration of the delay: They could open their doors everyday from Tuesday-Sunday, 1-8pm, and let the public walk freely in the building. The idea was accepted and the venue became a sensation; the public was fascinated by 59 Rivoli. The first year alone, they had 40,000 visitors.
After a long legal battle, they found out that the city was going to buy the building so that the artists could stay.
Gaspard recalled that day as the most beautiful moment in his 24 years with the squat: “This was crazy, something that we never dreamt of. Our wildest dream was to stay for 6 months. In this one case, reality went farther than fiction, it’s very rare. Most of the time fiction goes far beyond reality. Reality is disappointing. It doesn’t happen like this often. Suddenly the horizon opened.”
Currently, Gaspard’s art is focused on what he calls détournement (or “diversion”, in English.)
“It’s when you change the meaning of something, it’s a kind of subversion. This is what I like the most. Take something real and with words turn it into something different, something you haven’t thought of the first time. It’s appropriationism. It’s a way to give a second life to an object that has almost lost all of its value.”
It’s obvious how this idea inspires him, his studio is now unrecognizable as anything else but art, and when you walk in, you get the distinct feeling of being immersed in creativity and a little bit of madness. Gaspard invites visitors to leave a ticket, scrap of paper or anything else with a note on it, allowing them to become a part of the room and his art.
59 Rivoli is also a kind of détournament in its own way: an old and stuffy bank turned into a place of expression.
When you visit, Gaspard warned that you shouldn’t expect a typical museum or gallery experience.
“Here you are going to be close to art, you’re going to see where the people are working, how the people are working. That’s how it’s going to be.”
“It’s not something that has been prepared for you. Here you can say “this I like, this I don’t like, this is so different, what is this?”
Every 6 months there is a call for 15 new artists and anybody can apply. Any medium, any age. There are 15 permanent members but the others change every 6 months. The murals in the stairways change every 2 years. They also have a gallery which hosts groups of 4-10 artists changing every 2 weeks.
Their studio spaces are dedicated to keeping art alive and allowing artists to be discovered and seen.
And for Gaspard, this cultural center aligns better with the Paris of today.
“Paris is becoming a museum city with dead artists. In the music field there are great places, it’s a strong city with theaters and shows, it is excellent. We are one of the strongest in Europe in that regard. But with art, we are suffering, it is a problem, there are many artists unknown with amazing talent. It’s a shame.”
At 59 Rivoli they’re working against that, and fighting to preserve what’s important.
Gaspard adds: “I have one sentence from an Italian painter. Modigliani. He wrote a sentence that has been an inspiration for me and many other artists: ‘In this life your real duty is to save your dream’.”
59 Rivoli is a place where dreams are being saved, it’s a place that never should have existed, but nevertheless has survived 24 years in the beating heart of Paris. Visitors have a chance to see 30 brilliant artists at work, and years of history in an original Haussmannian building.
Address: 59 rue de Rivoli, 75001, Paris
Métro: Châtelet (lignes 1, 7, 4) or RER (lignes A, B, E)
Visitor Hours: Tuesday-Sunday 1-8pm
Official website here.
By Avery Lewis Stout