Rive droite/Rive gauche: the free photo exhibition around the Seine at Quai de la Photo

Paris Plage in summer, guinguettes, cafés-concerts, places to relax in fine weather, long quays for strolling, boats sailing and people working by the water: the banks of the Seine welcome many Parisians and tourists every season. Photographers from theRoger-Viollet agency have immortalized these banks of the Seine, always full of life. The long evolution of the banks of the Seine, between 1860 and 1960, can be seen in a free photo exhibition organized from June 5 to September 8, 2024.

Does this exhibition, entitled Rive droite/Rive gauche, ring a bell? With good reason: it was first presented in 2023 at the Roger-Viollet gallery . This summer 2024, the 85 photographs, which tell the story of a century of Parisian history, can be (re)discovered at Quai de la Photo .

The river, the lifeblood of the capital, and its banks are a privileged place to work and play. Itinerant wigmakers, animal shearers, cowherds, quilters, coachmen and their horses, waiters and waitresses cross paths with workers, families in their Sunday best, poor kids strolling through the capital and bourgeois coming out of the Samaritaine baths. Between the Left and Right Banks, worlds observe each other, sometimes mingling, sometimes brushing up against each other...

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The Seine and its banks are also major transportation routes, with bicycles, carriages, horses and, of course, boats all making their way through Paris. The river was used to transport goods, building materials and wine. The banks and ports of Paris were also occupied by sailors, workers and merchants.

But the Seine and its banks are also worlds apart, spaces romanticized, embellished and put under the spotlight. In 1900, the quays were the setting for an ephemeral installation, a fantasy world created for theUniversal Exhibition. In 2024, the Seine is once again the center of attention, for the Olympic and Paralympic Games.

These images of the past still resonate for some Parisians: those under 20 years old didn't live through those times, but perhaps you remember the halles aux vins and the Bercy warehouses, the Deligny floating pool... These photographs also allow us to make links with the present. Can you recognize these quays, this bridge, this museum immortalized a century ago?

The pictures on display at Quai de la Photo are an invitation to take a stroll. Bathers, strollers, sunbathers: a real summer atmosphere emanates from these images.

To complete this journey, Quai de la Photo has invited artist Frédéric Stucin to present his dreamlike journey. The photographer's series takes us on a journey to the source of the Seine River, in the footsteps of the ancient Sequanian people.

All these stories, all these developments, are told through the images featured in this free exhibition. Come and enjoy this photographic rendezvous at this floating art center, and take a stroll along the banks of the Seine, just a stone's throw away...