Artist Transforms The Louvre Using Thousands of Strips of Paper

Recently, French artist JR collaborated with a small group of volunteers to turn the Louvre in Paris into an enourmous optical illusion, in honor of the museum’s 30^th anniversary.

The collage, titled “The Secret of the Great Pyramid,” gives us a glimpse at what may lie beneath the legendary glass structure. This project is a follow-up to the artist’s work in 2016, in which he made the museum disappear against the backdrop of the Louvre Palace.

JR’s new illusion features an excavation site with the tip of the pyramid at its center and a larger structure extending down into a rocky quarry. According to JR, the latest art installation was designed to last a single weekend.

“The images, like life, are ephemeral,” JR wrote on his website. “Once pasted, the art piece lives on its own. The sun dries the light glue and with every step, people tear pieces of the fragile paper. The process is all about participation of volunteers, visitors, and souvenir catchers. This project is also about presence and absence, about reality and memories, about impermanence.”