Frank Bohbot went to Oakland, California, to photograph the famous Paramount theatre, one of the biggest Art Deco cinemas still preserved in the United States. The cinema can hold over 3000 spectators, and was built in 1931 on the initiative of Paramount Pictures, by Timothy L. Pflueger, an architect renowned for his many constructions in San Francisco Bay. The auditorium is entirely decorated in an Art Deco style that was very in vogue in the twenties and thirties. Its richly decorated and gilded ceiling features geometric designs that dominate the space, dotted with sculpted bas-reliefs representing biblical and mythological scenes. By installing his lens in the middle of the stage, the photographer highlights the symmetrical order of the theatre, which gains in monumentality and mystery once devoid of spectators.

**The artist: Franck Bohbot**

Born in 1980 in the Parisian region, Franck Bohbot lives and works in New York. He began his career as a set photographer, producing a number of photographic series dedicated to urban architecture, from 2008 onwards. His subjects include theatres, libraries, fair grounds, and swimming pools. While Bernd and Hilla Becher dedicate their works to the frontal photography of industrial installations, the French photographer develops a protocol with the same precision that allows him to draw up an inventory of Parisian public, cultural, or sporting sites, devoid of any human presence. The artist adopts a frontal point of view each time, highlighting an almost perfect symmetry. The photographer's outsider's eye thus lends the sites a new dimension: one that is more monumental and stylised. These places are transformed into unique and captivating spaces, both in terms of their historical and sociological aspects, as well as aesthetic concerns. This ability to observe architecture in an original manner has earned him some major commissions by prestigious institutions such as the Louvre.