PAINTED PARIS - GRAFFITI UNDERGROUND

Today, the subterranean catacombs beneath Paris are for tourists. Cataphiles, the illicit intruders that infiltrate the quarries under the city, paint graffiti that very few people have ever had the chance to view. Until now. Photographer Gilles Tondini, long fascinated with cataphiles and their exploits, has braved the waist-deep standing water and crawled through the nooks and crannies of these tunnels with his gear in tow to document the array of graffiti that artists have been adding to these limestone walls since the student protests of the late 1960s. Tondini’s exceptional photographs track the political, social and cultural
climates that inspired the artists, whose work ranges from traditional tags to riffs on more classical art forms. Including interviews with cataphiles active today.