Too prudent for some and too snobbish for others, nightlife in Paris has yet to earn its stripes – despite many new clubs opening in the last decade. To help things along, a new club, in the city’s nocturnal hub, on rue Montmartre, has replaced the late Social Club, former haunt for teens fans of the French label Ed Banger Records. It’s still owned by the Manifesto crew, Arnaud Frisch and Antoine Caton, who also run Nuits Fauves, Wanderlust and the much-hyped Silencio. Named after Pasolini’s subversive masterpiece, ‘Salò,’ or ‘the 120 Days of Sodom’, this artistic club – according to the owners – hopes to swim against the current and become the hotspot for alternative Parisian nightlife.
Inside, the walls are stripped back in the same way as Dersou’s, with screens projecting arty videos, by the likes of Abel Ferrara, photographer Antoine Dagata and duo Arielle Dombasle and Nicolas Ker. This unconventional club deviates from the rubric and proposes little to no rules. It covers almost every artistic discipline (cinema, music, photography) in a marathon 120-night programme, which includes 40 guest artists, organised by Anne-Claire Gallet and Coralie Gauthier, who spearheaded the gay night Flash Cocotte. Here, they offer something far less hedonistic, a place to stimulate the neurons rather than gyrate on the dancefloor.
TRANSLATION: MEGAN CARNEGIE
