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Paris’ famous Louvre Museum was forever transformed in Summer 2018 when it was spectacularly appropriated by megastar power couple Beyoncé and Jay-Z, by way of a music video for their single “Apeshit”. Timed to coincide with Everything is Love, their surprise joint album as The Carters, the video saw the couple, and Beyoncé in particular, performing in front of several significant paintings and sculptures in the museum’s vast collection.
Needless to say, two of the world’s most visible and successful black cultural figures seizing control of a space so synonymous with Western imperialism led to a lively debate in the days and weeks that followed. This episode reflects on that debate, in order to explore the wider relationship between buildings and power, questioning how a building like the Louvre comes to be invested with power, but also, how its seemingly immutable marriage of social and architectural order can be challenged by the sheer defiant presence of the historically excluded, doing something new in that space.
With some time passed since the video’s release, we’ll be reflecting on its impact on the Louvre, what it expresses about the museum’s position in contemporary society and what it portends for the future of museum spaces in general. In a bid to understand how the Louvre came to be such an imposing symbol of power in the first place, we’ll also be diving into its architectural history, which has long placed it at the very heart of the French state’s imperial ambitions.
- Sarah Huny Young is a creative director, artist/photographer, and New Yorker based in Pittsburgh, PA
- Heidi Herrera is an art historian based at the University of California
- Christopher Dickey is World Correspondent at the Daily Beast
- Paige K.Bradley is a New York-based artist and writer, and an editor for Artforum.com
This episode was directed by Charlie Clemoes//The Failed Architecture Team
References:
Abd Al Malik – Le jeune noir à l’épée
huny young Apeshit Twitter thread
Sarah Huny Young, “In Beyoncé And Jay-Z’s ‘Apeshit’ Video, Blackness Is An Art Form”
Heidi Herrera’s Apeshit Twitter thread
Heidi Herrera, “Beyonce & JAY-Z’s “Apesh*t” Video Redefined Black Art In A Historically White Space”
Christopher Dickey, “Les Tuileries: The Phantom Palace of Paris”
Paige K. Bradley, “The Unlikely Connection Between The Carters’ “Apeshit” and 1960s French Marxists”
Children of Men – Ark of the Arts
Mark Fisher, “Coffee Bars and Internment Camps”