12 Photos of Street Art in Paris

You can’t take photos in museums, but you can take them on the street.

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We didn’t manage to make it to Centre Pompidou – one of Paris’ main modern art museums. We wanted to go (at one point, we were even in line for tickets), but then we realized we were hungry, and there was pot au feu and steak frites to think about.

And then we found a Chagall exhibit, and the thing about Chagall is this: like Glenn Close in Fatal Attraction, he won’t be ignored. (Except, you know, with less dead bunnies.) So we went to that instead.

Later, we got macarons.

And I would feel somewhat terrible for skipping the Pompidou, had all of that not been absolutely amazing.

Besides, it wasn’t as though we missed out on the city’s modern art scene. In Paris, it’s everywhere: lurking in alleys, on the sides of otherwise ordinary buildings, in the middle of fountains.

Note Rand’s face in this next photo – you’ll find it says it all.

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We might not have made it to the museum, but we marveled at a few masterpieces from crowded sidewalks, while eating macarons. It’s hard to complain about that.

1. Fanciful alley, near Chez H’anna.
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2. I still don’t know what this is about, but I found it kind of haunting.
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3. Where graffiti meets calligraphy.
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4. Triple Falafel With a Side of GZUP (Mixed media on stone pillar, date unknown, artist unknown)
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5. Hiding beneath an overhang.
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6. He must have just emigrated from Portland.

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7. “Sooo … now I’m craving shrimp.”
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8. This reminded me of some of the artwork from Radiohead’s Kid A album.
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9. Shhhhh! mural, near Centre Pompidou
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10. Fountain de los muertos.
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11. Chalk face on pillar.
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12. Architecture installation, Pavillion de L’Arsenal