Itinerary: A 2-Day Gallery-Filled Romp Around Paris

With London in transition post-Brexit, Paris is once again flying high as an art world center. And while evergreen destinations like The Louvre, D’Orsay, and the Pompidou (closing for a reno in ‘25) never disappoint, there is a whole universe of art galleries and smaller venues that beckon the more intrepid. And, as my recent visit revealed, this is especially true if one’s interest leans towards photography.

I had the pinch-me good luck to be at the annual photography fair  Paris Photo  in November with my friend  Sarah Meister, a longtime photography curator at MoMA, who is now executive director of  The Aperture Foundation. Established in 1952, Aperture publishes some of the most iconic photo books out there (Edward Weston, Diane Arbus, Sally Mann, LaToya Ruby Frasier, Nan Goldin, Dawoud Bey) as well as the seminal quarterly journal by the same name. The organization’s presence is felt throughout the fair not only for its critical role in publishing and journalism, but also for its esteemed Photobook awards at Paris Photo. 

Paris and the history of photography are inextricably bound. The black-and-white classics that embody Cartier-Bresson’s idea of the “Decisive Moment” are etched into your mind’s eye: think of a woman leaping across a puddle on Paris streets, a bicycle as it whirrs over cobblestones with the strange geometry of cast iron railings in the foreground and the excitement of sharp angles and shadows of a city first seen that way. Even the pop of color when it emerged. That’s all there and can still take your breath away, but the galleries and smaller museums engaging with both old and new voices are exciting and worth a deep dive. 

Aside from being a fly on the wall as the power players of this corner of the art world did their thing, I found myself rediscovering the city as it was reasserting itself out of London’s shadow. With Aperture, I had access to the fair during less-crowded preview days, and during the week attended artist talks with editors and curators, museum visits with artists, and book signings with greats like Susan Meiseles and Gregory Crewdson. In the days I spent wandering the vast halls of the fair, I found myself drawn to the booths of certain Paris galleries. Their offerings ran the gamut—from the classics to artists and images that not only were new to me, but felt particularly of this moment. Forthwith is a two-day guide to the standouts—combining my walks with highlights from the fair—along with some sustenance stops to keep up the stamina and blood sugar. 

Day One: Le Marais and environs

Le Marais and its immediately surrounding area is the place to start just for the sheer concentration of great selection. Because most galleries open after lunch, begin the day at the  Henri-Cartier Bresson Foundation, where you’ll find exhibits ranging from the French classics like Bresson or Atget, to mid-century Americans like Ruth Orkin (whose stellar exhibit was showing when I was there), all the way to younger up-and-comers like Vasantha Yogananthan. Head to the  Musée Picasso from there, where, much like the Bresson, there is a constant turnover of thoughtful programming. My visit coincided with the Sophie Calle exhibition, made all the more exciting by the private tour Aperture had organized with the artist herself. 

For lunch, a quick walk will get you to the  Marché Couvert des Enfants Rouges, a covered market featuring cases of gorgeous cheeses, rows of hanging meats and the like. You’ll walk all the way to the back to find the place that I hope to dine at again and again for the rest of my days:  Les Enfants du Marché, a fresh seafood vendor with a long counter and some stools. Amidst a range of the catches of the day is a short but sweet menu scribbled on a chalkboard. This is the kind of place where you let the harried man in the apron choose your wine after you’ve ordered. On the day I was there, a funky, cloudy orange—one of the best I’ve ever tried—was slapped down hurriedly and my lunch date and I wondered if we’d ever been happier as we swigged away alongside the delectably fresh chef’s crudo and a side of chanterelles sautéed in an armagnac cream sauce with egg.

After lunch, the  Galerie Les Filles du Calvaire, where you’ll find great work from emerging artists like Lore Stessel and Arielle Bobb-Willis and Charles Fregér’s saturated color photos from Assam, is a good bet. They also have beautiful Todd Hido work and some Katrien de Blauwer collages I coveted. Just across the street is the famed  Yvon Lambert Gallery, which has a storied bookshop with excellent art books and limited edition gifts and posters. At the gallery  Magnin-A, the emphasis is on African modern and contemporary art and they have heavy hitters like Seydou Keïta and Malick Sidibé, but one of the great standouts of the whole fair for me was a series Omar Victor Diop created with Lee Shulman of  Galerie Binome  (also nearby) called The Anonymous Project. Diop, a black man, is seamlessly integrated into anonymous vintage photos from the ‘50s, ‘60s and ‘70s of white people at play, picnicking, at cocktail parties and dinners. It’s both beautiful and arresting and worth seeing if you can. 

Other galleries to check out in and around the Marais are:  Bigaignon Gallery, with Thierry Urbain’s almost monochromatic architectural landscapes.  Polka Galerie  is serious about photography and represents major artists (and their estates) like Lartigue, Sobol, Erwitt, William Klein, Joel Meyerowitz and a new favorite for me, Toshio Shibata. Right next door to Polka, at  Galerie Maubert, Arnaud Lesage’s photographs are both monumental and conceptual and Iranian photographer Payram’s haunting pieces express the state of exile.  Les Douches La Galerie  is another great destination for current and historical photography with Berenice Abbott, Arlene Gottfried, Ernst Haas and Vivian Maier and an iconic Frank Horvat from 1974, the Eiffel Tower framed by a high-heeled shoe. Also consider stopping by  Toluca,  Baudoin Lebon  (where I loved Raoul Hausmann from 1939 and Paul Facchetti from 1940),  VU, and  193 Gallery, where I saw more of the great Moroccan artist Hassan Hajjaj, who I’d first encountered at his wildly wonderful cafe-cum-gallery in the industrial zone in Marrakech last Spring. Of note:  Galerie Francoise Paviot  is the motherlode and unfortunately by appointment only, but worth it if you’re in the market for the finest of the classics. They have a deep archive of some of the finest photography in its history including Atget, Muybridge, Brassaii, Man Ray, and Moholy-Nagy, to name a very few!

Wind your way towards the Seine to the excellent  Museum Européenne de la Photographie, an exhibition space devoted to modern and contemporary photography and film, located in a surprisingly light and airy 18th-century mansion. While there, we caught the first retrospective of photographer Vivienne Sassen’s incredible body of work in fashion and art. If you’re still going strong, head across to the  Galerie Clémentine de la Féronnière, which represents great contemporary artists like Martin Parr, Paul Graham, Guillaume Zuili and Carolle Bénitah and has the added bonus of another great bookshop next door.  

For your reward, head up by taxi or metro to  Bar Folderol for a glass of wine (you can return after your dinner for their bonkers good ice cream—my flavor of choice was orange sanguine jasmin). Finally,  Pompette, another favorite meal of the trip and not too far from Folderol. Reserve ahead if you can. It’s a small gem in the 9th, where the menu changes daily and every single dish is deliciously fresh, layered without being too complex and with an equally good biodynamic wine list. A standout dish on my night was a rich and charred grilled pork on tomato purée topped with tangy mustard seeds and parsley. 

Day Two: The Left Bank

When I asked Sarah about her chosen spots after all these years of traveling to Paris for work, she said, ”My favorite bookstore (although there’s a wonderful amount of competition for this honor):  Delpire & Co, whose founder Robert Delpire was the prescient first publisher of Robert Frank’s The Americans in 1958, at a moment when no one in the United States was willing to take such a risk.” It is indeed special and a perfect spot to kick off day two on the Left Bank. When I passed through, I grabbed a beautiful monograph of photos by the filmmaker Agnes Varda and a book from Lúa Ribeira that I picked up purely for its gorgeous marble-like cover and was then drawn in by the work itself. You could spend hours here combing through all the journals and magazines; it’s also a great source of gifts like prints and artist boxes at great price points if you’re not ready to go big and buy yourself a Diane Arbus (wink, wink).

After stocking up on gifts head to  Localino, a simple but refined Italian with an intimate room that opens from behind an elegant front bar. The decor is 1930s meets ‘70s, the latter decade signaled by the single piece of art anchoring the wall: a large framed photo of a mid-sentence Mick Jagger in a white suit holding a cigarette aloft while John Lennon looks on in a neat tux. The day I passed through was overcast and drizzly and this spot was the cure. I sat facing the epic rock and roll royalty on a long, elegant banquette in crushed ochre velvet with rounded edges. Nursing a lingering cold I opted for an herby chickpea puree that arrived shimmering with olive oil and a blessed fresh baguette at the ready. It managed to be creamy and weightless at the same time. This was followed by a deeply comforting hand-folded ragu tortelloni in a light and tangy broth. 

Sated and warmed, I joined the Aperture gang at an artist talk with Myriam Boulos, a young Lebanese photographer, at  Galerie Madé. Boulos’ work transcends the witness role in photojournalism and moves through intimate and political spaces with equal ease. It left me excited to see what else Madé has coming. Another nearby gallery worth checking out is Olivier Waltmann, where I fell in love with a photographer I’d never known before: Gyula Zarand, whose pictures from 1960s Budapest captured the tension between the oppression of Communist Hungary and the tug at freedom that ended in such tragedy at the time. Just up the street is  Galerie Jean-Kenta Gauthier, another good go-to. From there, I ambled down through the Jardin du Luxembourg to  Camera Obscura, where my favorite pieces were Michael Ackerman’s black-and-white grainy collage-like layout of gulls flocking and disbanding in Varanasi, and Lucien Herve’s 1958 shots of modernist spaces.  Galerie Esther Woerdehoff is another absolute standout. There you’ll find an incredible stable of artists ranging from Bresson and Erwin Blumenfeld’s work from the 1930s and ‘40s to Michael Wesely, whose impressionistic multiple exposures of objects, people and places evoke a sort of unplaceable nostalgia. Next stop,  SAGE Paris, where I loved the work of mononymous artist Margot, who creates individual pieces with intricate, almost tattoo-like drawings onto vintage sepia-toned photographs.

After all the trudging and the steady (albeit romantic in its way) drizzle of my time there, I headed to dinner at  La Poule au Pot  (If you have time beforehand, pop in to the close-by Pinault Collection at the  Bourse de Commerce  to see the building and the fantastic exhibits culled from François Pinault’s collection of contemporary art). My art world troupers and I toasted our discoveries over glasses of Cabernet Sauvignon. Soon the table filled with radishes and butter, and creamy herby lentils in a tiered silver tower wedged around a white taper candle on the signature pale pink tablecloth. The simple acidic brace of a butterhead salad with herbs was perfect foil to foie gras encased in its fat, a pinch of coarse ground pepper beside a neat pinch of salt and some cranberry gelée to cut the richness. The main attraction—the poule au pot—is a beauty in a 19th-century silver pot with requisite silver ladle. The poule is nestled in carrots, potatoes, and herbs in a fragrant broth. So simple and so g-ddamn good. I recommend falling into bed with dreams of creative genius and delicious food and wine!

A final note: if you’re planning a trip that includes these galleries and exhibition spaces, time it between Wednesday and Sunday, as most galleries and many smaller museums are closed Mondays and Tuesdays. I would go for a leisurely breakfast, make the morning a museum visit, then proceed to galleries after lunch since, as mentioned, most open only after 1 or 2 PM.  Paris Photo takes place next November, 2024, in the Grand Palais. Tickets can be purchased for General Admission or VIP, which allows early access. Aperture members can join the Aperture Paris Photo trip, which includes VIP preview access and private cultural programming and events throughout the week. More information about Aperture can be found  here.