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An army of volunteers on Tuesday started
pasting a colossal 160,000 square feet paper image over the
courtyard to prepare for the trompe l'oeil.
The image will create the illusion of a larger pyramid emerging
from rocks as if it had been discovered by an archaeological
excavation.
The 70-foot-high glass-and-steel pyramid, designed by
Chinese-American architect I.M. Pei, now aged 101, was
controversial when it was inaugurated in the classical setting
of the Louvre in March 1989. But has since become a beloved
Paris landmark.
"The pyramid has always inspired me, the way it mixes the
ancient and the modern," JR told Reuters. "This time, a big part
of it is to confront the modern with archaeology."
The new trompe l'oeil will be fully visible from Friday evening
only from the museum's roof. JR's team has installed two giant
screens on the courtyard to allow visitors to see the result
from the ground.
For two days, Saturday and Sunday, the courtyard will be open
for visitors to walk on it and observe the optical illusion.
"Once everything is pasted, people will be over the image and it
will fade away and disappear," JR said.
The interactive part of the project - volunteers enrolling to
paste 32-foot-long paper strips and tourists walking, watching
and appearing on the video shot from above - is what attracted
the Louvre authorities.
"The visitor is always at the heart of our concern, with always
the goal to better welcome them," Louvre president Jean-Luc
Martinez said.
The performance is a continuation of a giant trompe l'oeil three
years ago that made the pyramid disappear behind a giant
black-and-white photo.
The pyramid is the most popular of a series of ambitious
projects launched by then President Francois Mitterrand in the
1980s and 1990s that changed the image of the French capital.
"Les grands travaux", as they were dubbed, were criticized at
their conception because their modern shape conflicted with
traditional Parisian architecture.
(Reporting by Inti Landauro; Editing by Angus MacSwan)
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