Rocking Paris by Philip Andelman

Alliterative activities don’t come much better than baking baguettes with the Beastie Boys. Just ask director Philip Andelman, who did that––and much more––over three (very hot) days with the irreverent hip-hop pioneers and rock’s current super group, The Dead Weather, last June in Paris. Best known as the video director of choice for superstars like Jay-Z and Beyoncé, as well as indie favorites Ryan Adams and The Gossip, Andelman jumped at the opportunity to shoot the two bands, catching up with them while passing through Paris after a wedding in the south of France. “I wound up extending my plane ticket five times,” he laughs. Andelman documented what he describes as “high jinks” with the bands—who had met each other for the first time the week before in a London hotel lobby and were joined in Paris by director Spike Jonze—as the posse engaged in various activities around the city, including pétanque at the Palais Royale, a search for the world’s most expensive cocktail at the Ritz, and a spin through the Louvre, with a key stop into Andelman’s favorite hall of huge 19th-century French canvasses.  “My whole life is a series of random happenstance, luck and oddness,” says the director of the experience. His resulting photographs comprise the series Three Days in Paris, which runs through May 29th at Milk Gallery.