(A red sash tied around a white swatch of fabric that covers the lower part of her body has also been cut.) The unknown sitter stares out in the video, taking up the full screen, her hair wrapped in a turban, her eyes angled slightly to her right as she shows one golden hoop earring (a pose that brings to mind Kerry James Marshall’s Untitled (Painter), 2009). The video crops Benoist’s portrait so that the servant’s exposed breast is no longer visible. Kadish, a scholar on French slavery, has written that, while some have read the woman in Benoist’s painting as an allegory for the republic (she is surrounded by the tricolor) or noted her resolute gaze, the art historian Griselda Pollock has compared the image to that of a scene in a slave auction, and the art historian Darcy Grimaldo Grigsby has written that its offensive title, which dehumanizes the sitter, “exercises a form of mastery or subordination: the sitter is robbed, like a slave, of her person’s property.” Possibly showing a servant brought to France from the Antilles by Benoist’s brother-in-law, it was painted in 1800, after the abolition of slavery by France but just as Napoleon was working to reinstate it in the nation’s colonies.ĭoris Y. Perhaps the most intriguing inclusion is a close-up shot of Marie-Guillemine Benoist’s Portrait of a Negress (1800) near the end of the video. Occasionally the lyrics and paintings cleverly sync up, too, as when Beyoncé sings, “Sippin’ my favorite alcohol/Got me so lit I need Tylenol” while details of wine being generously poured in Veronese’s The Wedding at Cana (1563) flash on screen. 2600 B.C.), the Venus de Milo (101 B.C.), The Winged Victory of Samothrace (190 B.C.), and David’s Coronation of Napoleon (1805–07), their movements and poses sometimes loosely mirroring those of figures in the artworks. The leading couple and their accompanying dancers also spend time with iconic works like the Great Sphinx of Tanis (ca. And it will not be surprising if, in a few months, we find them at the top of the Corcovado in Brasil or the Pyramids of Giza.Jacques-Louis David’s Coronation of Napoleon (1805–07). "It follows through 17 paintings and sculptures which are featured in the clip, going from the monumental white Greek marble 'Nike of Samothrace' to Marie Benoist's 'Portrait of a Negress.'"Īs for their intention to occupy the Roman Coliseum, Le Point thinks that “the splendid scenery will allow Queen B and Jay-Z to stage a new grandiose clip with their usual air of excessivenes. "Now the Louvre, which already has a tour based on the US rapper will.i.am's hit 'Smile Mona Lisa,' has created another based on the Carters' night in the museum," writes The Local. And contributed to blow up the entrances to the Louvre, which has seized the opportunity to create a tour dedicated to Apeshit. In any case, the effort proved successful as the clip currently has collected 84 million views on YouTube. The video includes close-ups that single out black figures in paintings such as Veronese’s "Wedding at Cana," Géricaults' "The Raft of the Medusa" and Marie-Guillemine Benoist’s "Portrait of a Negress." Some critics find the video to be “a deliberate statement on the marginalization of black figures in predominantly white Western art by the two most prominent African Americans in pop culture,” according to the Telegraph.ĭuring their July tour in Nice, France BefonceFrance It was shot in the galleries and the plaza outside the museum and is a six-minute video that begins with the Carters standing in front of the Mona Lisa - Beyoncé in a lavender pantsuit and Jay-Z in a light green suit - with scantily-clad dancers swaying sensually around them. The video, scored by French critics as “the height of the megalomania of Beyoncé and Jay-Z,” shows them and their troupe dancing and singing in front of various iconic works including the "Mona Lisa" and Jacques Louis David’s "The Coronation of Napoleon."Īpeshit, which has been translated into French as Excitation Sauvage, is the second track on their joint new album, Everything is Love. It is the highest number for a museum of its kind. They filmed Apeshit at the Louvre at night and in the greatest discretion. The 10.2 million people who came to the museum in 2018 marked a 25 rise in visitors, beating the previous record of 9.7 million visitors in 2012. Last May, France was stunned after it went viral that the couple had managed to shoot in complete secrecy a video for their latest album in the world’s most famous museum in Paris. The start of the video at the Louvre Museum youtube
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