by iloboyou.com
On the occasion of the 30th anniversary of the Louvre Pyramid, modern artist JR created a collaborative piece of art that is completely mesmerizing because of the optical illusion effect.
Three years after having made the Louvre Pyramid disappear, the artist brought a new light to the famed monument by realizing a gigantic modern art collage, thanks to the help of 400 volunteers.
JR’s 2016 Louvre art installation
JR’s 2016 Louvre art installation
Each day hundreds of volunteers came to help cut and paste the 2000 strips of paper for this art installation, making it the biggest pasting that was ever done by the contemporary artist.
The images, like life, are ephemeral. Once pasted, the art piece lives on its own right in the center of Louvre. The sun dries the light glue and with every step, people tear pieces of the fragile paper.
The process is all about the participation of volunteers, visitors, and souvenir catchers. This project is also about presence and absence, about reality and memories, about impermanence.
The trompe l’oeil effect isn’t visible from the ground of the Louvre, it takes a wider view from the top to get the full effect, as seen on pictures. Thinking about its visitors, JR’s team installed two giant screens on the courtyard to allow visitors to see it from the ground. I Lobo You is utterly stunned by this art exhibition that took a total of 5 days to get the full effect.
However, it only lasted for a couple of minutes, since once visitors set foot into the paper it immediately started to disintegrate, which caused a bit of a controversy on social media since the paper shreds are not only on Louvre but are now all over Paris.