Le Bal

Two streets away from Place de Clichy, at the end of a renovated impasse with gleaming cobblestones and beside a pretty square, you’ll find Le Bal. Its innovative architecture features two black-floored exhibition rooms and massive white columns stretching over 700m².

Created by the association Les Amis de Magnum Photos and its president, the photographer Raymond Depardon, this space exhibits the documentary image in all its forms: photo, video and new media, examining the use of the image in the digital age. But that’s not all: visitors also flock for its specialised photography bookshop and the colourful and convivial Le Bal Café.

The building, opened in 2010, has an unusual history. Where exhibitions of up-and-coming photographers and videographers take place today was, in the 1920s, the scene of diversions of a different kind: Chez Isis was a guinguette-dancehall but also a “hôtel d’amour” for rich clients looking to mix with the riffraff. In memory of this, the attractive cultural space was named Le Bal.