By donning expressions very much in the same vein as the iconic painting, they’re telling the viewer that they’re basically in the presence of a peer.īut even more than that, they’re commenting on the beguiling and enticing space they occupy in our own culture. They are telegraphing to us that they are as iconic as the “Mona Lisa”, without even saying a word. But even more of an echo of the painting is their expressions: a strong stare straight ahead, lips pressed together, shoulders back. Suits for both, in bright colours and styles specific to their tastes and representative of the times they live in again, just like the “Mona Lisa”. Like the “Mona Lisa”, Beyoncé and Jay-Z are dressed simply, but powerfully. Sure, it’s a callback to the first time they took a photo with arguably the most famous painting in history back in 2014, but something is different this time around. The Carters begin positioning themselves as iconography from the moment we first see them, standing in front of the “Mona Lisa”. It’s a middle finger to convention, a dare aimed at squarely at the gatekeepers of history and artistic tradition: You know we deserve to be here. Their presence in a place that preserves what history has deemed the most important artworks, standing next to said art while themselves looking like art and using their body language to engage with this art, already implies they are as worthy of being there as the older work. Not only can we expect to see (and do see) The Carters standing next to some of the most famous works of art, including the Mona Lisa and Winged Victory of Samothrace, but we see that they are aligning themselves with it right out of the gate. For modern audiences and fans of The Carters, the disruption is surely welcome. Tradition and the Louvre go hand-in-hand, too, which means that Beyoncé and Jay-Z’s presence is a total disruption from the beginning. It’s a microcosm of history, which itself is mostly white, male, and heterosexual. Historically, it’s a predominately white space that primarily features white, male-created works of art. Let’s start with the primary location in “APESHIT”: the Louvre.
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