Beyoncé and Jay-Z, sensing your desperation for a Song of the Summer - er, Song of the Year, okay, Album of the Year - winner, released a surprise joint album, Everything Is Love, on Saturday evening. I can’t believe we made it t hey say, still astonished.A moment of silence for other musicians releasing new music for the remainder of the summer, please. The video celebrates their success, while recognizing what they owe to their predecessors and the work that has yet to be done. At a time when French museums rarely venture out of a factitious neutrality, this video clip illustrates a notable politicization of collections.Īfter all this time during which blacks did not have their place in the museum and were banished from classical culture, Beyoncé, Jay-Z and their dancers had the Louvre for themselves for two nights (offendeding many bitter commentators on social networks). Although the approach is part of a commercial and promotional strategy, the video draws attention to the collections and encourages the many fans to be curious and critical (Twitter threads identifying the references and their meanings have multiplied since the release of the video, don’t miss the explanations given by giving life to collections too often frozen by academicism, opening them to new audiences and making others rediscovering them. It is interesting that the Louvre gave carte blanche to the Carter couple and his team, and paved the way for such a reinterpretation of the collections (“ the Louvre was quickly convinced because the synopsis showed a real attachment to the museum and its beloved artworks“). The silhouette of the dancers in the Louvre can thus evoke a forest of black statues, unknown, but which finally find their place in the high places of culture, next to the white or bleached marbles (some, if not most, ancient statues were originaly painted ).Īnd what to say about this plan showing the couple, looking like the Virgin and Joseph in a Renaissance painting, at ease and a bit sly among the masterpieces of the museum? Through these visuals, they reclaim Antiquity and a classical white culture, creating new models. The phenomenon is not entirely new, as has already been observed in Beyoncé’s communication, as well as other African-American singers like Rihanna, Nicki Minaj or Kanye West. Paradoxically, it is his dark skin that best captures the light, when the Venus de Milo disappears into the darkness.Ĭopyright Vanessa Beecroft, Courtesy Caroline Smulders & Lia Rumma GalleryĮgyptian antiquity is here claimed as black, but Greco-Roman antiquity, often regarded as white, is also reinvested, as if to emphasize that for too long, and while it is very frequently affirmed as universal ( classical), it has been monopolized by a dominant and racist culture. In front of the Venus de Milo or the victory of Samothrace, the effect is slightly different: the singer seems rather to assert herself as a new version of these masterpieces of white marble to which she opposes both her black color and her fluidity. Is it a reference to the violence inflicted to female and black bodies? In front of the rape of the sabine women (David again), these same black women claim their power while white women are the victims of white men in the background. Besides the fact that these black women whose body is highlighted almost make you forget the picture, we notice that it is the singer who seems crowned, instead of the empress, relegated to the background. This is the case, for example, with Jacques-Louis David’s Sacre de Napoléon, before which Beyoncé performs a choreography with dancers. In the most frequent one, the black and living bodies of the artists impose themselves before works of which they are completely absent and which they defy. Three scenarios dominate in the staging of the video. Eight paintings do not refer directly to Antiquity, but some of them, like Madame Récamier allude to the Greco-Roman tradition. On several occasions the Apollo Gallery or the famous glass pyramid of the Louvre also appear in the video. We also identify fFour paintings representing scenes taking place in antiquity. Echoing the lyrics, the video highlights the success of the couple as well as the almost complete absence of diversity among the artists represented in the Louvre and in the works on display.įour ancient sculptures appear in the clip: the great sphinx of Tanis, The Victory of Samothrace, the Venus of Milo and Hermes attaching his sandal. Accompanied in particular by black dancers, they sing, strike a pose and perform choreographies in front of several works of this palace of culture, changing outfit in each shot. In Apeshit, Beyoncé and Jay-z share their night at the Louvre with us.
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