For his appearance at the Louvre, JR removes its Pyramid – The World

After the Pantheon covered with anonymous self-portraits, and the national Assembly for supporting to film portraits at the COP21, the french artist JR stormed a new Parisian monument: the Louvre

the poster announced a disappearance. crumpled a picture of the museum building, with a triangular tear in its center, a vacuum instead of its glass pyramid. Everything was there (paper, a black and white, a sleight of passes), but JR foresaw exactly the opposite for the scheduled disappearance: a subtraction in terms of addition. The French artist has covered the most photographed front of the glass building designed by Pei by the piece of facade she usually hides, revealing what we no longer look since the late 1980s, when the irruption of the monument, point of entry into the museum, had also created a strong controversy.

If the effect of this sham is as fun as striking is that it combines the times also at the technical level. What appears as a lost point of view only works through an anamorphic so that the angled face of the pyramid can create the illusion of a solid color. Now if this optical method is old, he evokes through the use of photography another type of manipulation, this time in the digital era: Photoshop. The device thus acts as a visual copy-pasted across the urban landscape. A “rigging” nevertheless emphasized by the black and white photography.

the collage is part of the project “Unframed” JR leads since 2009. in this series, street-artist uses archive images to give them new life by reinserting them in their original architectural context. An irruption game and reactivation of collective memory that was recently deployed to Ellis Island, a symbolic place of immigration in New York.

A Programme 24-hour marathon

The creation is accompanied by a series of meetings at the Louvre. The first was a surprise DJ set concert of Arcade Fire singer Win Butler, around a basin of Tuileries Garden, Wednesday, May 25, the opening day of the installation.

JR imagined a marathon program on a full day, from Saturday 28 to Sunday, May 29 It will start on Saturday at 15 hours by a “masterclass” the lively artist Sam Stourdzé, the Director of Photography Encounters of Arles, followed by 17 hours of a conversation between the artist Daniel Buren, Felice Varini and JR and the philosopher Peter Sloterdijk on “the art of creating in the public space.”

at 19 pm, the artist and filmmaker Agnès Varda present faces, faces , their documentary in progress . At 21 hours, two magicians artists Yann Frisch and Arthur Chavaudet, will conduct tours in the halls of the museum closed (five “magic Impromptus” from thirty minutes in groups of 25).

Finally at 0:30, Berlin pianist Nils Frahm install pianos, organs and machines under the Pyramid for a concert until dawn duet with musician and producer of Iceland Ólafur Arnalds.

At 6:00 Sunday morning, the chef Jean Imbert offer breakfast ” of Greco-Roman inspiration “ to 100 before the Victory of Samothrace , then 30 at 9 am, the Auditorium du Louvre will host participatory workshops for two hours. Finally, JR will close twenty-four hours a “Eulogy of viral image” 14 hours to 15 h 30.

The installation of the Pyramid will remain visible until June 27. With embouillages view at all times: an anamorphic having the feature to only offer the illusion that from one point of focus, a new tail shape now spontaneously before this strategically

.