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Louvre Looks: The Iconic Museum Celebrates Its 230th Anniversary

The sunset of The Louvre museum in Paris. (Photo: © Bo Li | Dreamstime.com )

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By John Olusegun

August 17, 2023
6:35 pm
Los Angeles, CA

It’s 2023, and the Louvre is celebrating 230 years of existence. This anniversary comes with expected anticipation, and the iconic museum is going all the way in to celebrate it. A program tagged Louvre Looks is one of the foremost activities to commemorate this remarkable anniversary. Under this program, the museum welcomes 20 contemporary artists aged 40 to contribute to a visual art program. These artists all have links to Paris, and their proposal must feature an association with the museum and its partner institution, the Louvre-Lens. Louvre Looks is a novel program for the museum. Participating artists are drawn from different creative spheres, including music, cinema, fashion, painting, and literature. Each will contribute a piece of work which will take the form of a 3:30-minute video. This video

Louvre Looks is a novel program for the museum. Participating artists are drawn from different creative spheres, including music, cinema, fashion, painting, and literature. Each will contribute a piece of work which will take the form of a 3:30-minute video. This video will depict the artist’s view of the Louvre and its purpose. The program aims to show the museum from these artists’ perspectives with a personal connection with the museum, its collection, visitors, and so on.

Artists invited to participate in the program include Ivan Argote, Bianca Bondi, Guillaume Bresson, Theo Casciani, David Douard, Jacob Bromberg, Pan Daijing, Eliza Douglas, Miles Greenberg, Marie Jacotey, Jennifer Douzenel, Rafik Greiss, Mimosa Echard, Christelle Oyiri, Marine Serre, Hicahm Berrada, Mykki Blanco and Dachi-Giorgi Garuchava, Anton Bialas and Kamilya Kuspanova, Edgar Sarin, and Ariana Papademetropoulous.
These artists have all become prominent in their fields and are considered significant contributors to contemporary art. Using the museum as their muse, Louvre’s President-Director, Laurence des Cars, stated that the views of these artists “show us different ways of looking at the Louvre and new, contemporary ways of creating with the museum, confirming its role as a contemporary site of art.”

The program allows artists to explore different options to create their videos. They could use film crews to stage elaborate productions or film a simple video on their mobile phones. These contributions could be filmed at night when the museum is peaceful or during the day when visitors abound, and the essence of the museum is at the fore. These artists’ options include the digital resources available or reliance on their personal connection to the museum and the works it houses.

The program utilizes recent video content production trends from a diverse range of devices. Recently, people have used videos to interact with the museum by filming the works displayed or taking photographs of them. This medium is not unique to the general public. Renowned filmmakers also use videos to show their view of the Louvre. In the spirit of continuing this tradition, the museum operators decided to feature the Louvre Looks program as part of the anniversary activities.

The Louvre Looks program is presented at an avant-premiere screening during the International Art Film Festival in the Michel Laclotte Auditorium on 26 January 2023. After then, it was revealed to the public one video per week on the museum’s Instagram account. The original creations will be with the artists after they have been presented at the Louvre-Lens, a gesture to improve the collaboration between the two museums. Those who cannot see the collection while it is on display can view it digitally through social media.