Long confined to wasteland and derelict lots, street art has gradually become a real reason to visit parts of Paris, spanning large official murals and walls spontaneously repainted by collectives. Three neighborhoods hold most of today's scene, each with its own logic.
The 13th arrondissement, the open-air gallery
The "Boulevard Paris 13" program, launched by Galerie Itinerrance and the 13th arrondissement town hall from 2014 onward, turned the facades along Boulevard Vincent-Auriol and Avenue d'Italie into some thirty monumental murals by international artists: Shepard Fairey (Obey), Invader, C215 and Seth among them. The project owes much to "Tour Paris 13," an entire building painted by around a hundred artists in 2013 before its demolition, which drew tens of thousands of visitors in just a few weeks.
Belleville and rue Dénoyez
This working-class, multicultural neighborhood spanning the 19th and 20th arrondissements owes its street-art reputation to rue Dénoyez, where a collective of artists rehoused by the city in 2001 turned the walls into a permanent, ever-changing canvas, endlessly repainted by new artists. Unlike the 13th, no gallery coordinates the site: the murals shift as the mood takes, sometimes within a matter of weeks.
La Butte-aux-Cailles
In this village-like pocket of the city, spared the Haussmann-style architecture found elsewhere, street art developed more informally, artist by artist, often with the tacit blessing of residents and shopkeepers. Passage Boiton holds several mosaics by the well-known Invader, rue Alphand has mirrored mosaics by Le Diamantaire, and the neighborhood's swimming pool carries a monumental mural painted by the artist Kashink together with local schoolchildren.
Tips
All three neighborhoods are best explored on foot with no fixed route: street art changes regularly, so it's better to wander the side streets and let yourself be surprised than to follow too precise a plan. The 13th has the highest density of murals, Belleville is the most unpredictable, and La Butte-aux-Cailles is the nicest place to linger over a drink afterward.
