In the countdown to the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris, the Olympic torch relay’s Bastille Day leg made stops at the Louvre and the Center Pompidou. Among the torch bearers, who number 10,000 in total, was French street artist JR, known for his politically engaged public art installations.

JR received the flame outside the museum from Sandra Laoura, a French moguls skier who won a bronze metal in the 2006 games. As he stepped inside the Louvre, he passed along the flame.

“Now the flame will go and continue through the whole museum,” JR said in a video on Instagram capturing the moment. “Pretty crazy. Merci!”

The artist has ties to both the games and the museum.

Bearer of the flame JR, French photographer and street artist, holds the Olympic Torch on July 14, 2024 in at Louvre Museum in Paris, France. Photo by Maja Hitij/Getty Images.

In 2016, he effectively made I.M. Pei’s glass pyramid disappear, covering it with a photograph of the Louvre courtyard behind it. And in 2019, he created the illusion that the pyramid was emerging out of a deep rock chasm.

And for the Rio Olympics, he installed two larger-than-life photographs of athletes in motion on construction scaffolding in the city.

French artist JR passes the flame of the Olympic torch at the Louvre. Photo by Nicolas Bousser, ©Musée du Louvre.

“Walking the Olympic torch through the Louvre was a wild convergence of moments for me,” the artist told me. “The museum is such an iconic, precious monument in Paris and the place where I began my ‘Trompe l’oeil’ series in 2016, and returned for another installation in 2019. In 2016, I was also invited by Olympics to create monumental sculptures in Rio using scaffolding for the first time. I found inspiration in the perfect motion of athletes.”

 

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Once the torch was inside the Louvre, French dancer and choreographer Marie-Claude Pietragalla carried it past masterworks such as Liberty Leading the People by Eugène Delacroix, dramatically posing to mirror the painting.

She passed the flame off to its next leg in front of the Mona Lisa.

The official Paris Olympics Instagram account shared a photo of the moment the torch passed the famous Leonardo da Vinci portrait, asking viewers to “name a more iconic duo.”

14 JUILLET 2024 🔥

📷 Paris 2024 / Guillaume Ruchaud / SIPA PRESS pic.twitter.com/czcN5KlzeV

— Paris 2024 (@Paris2024) July 14, 2024

The torch itself is a work of art, created by French designer Mathieu Lehanneur.

The design is perfectly symmetrical “to better express a message of equality,” Lehanneur said in his artists statement. “I wanted it to be extremely pure, iconic, and almost essential. Simple like a hyphen and fluid like a flame.”

 

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The torch relay has visited 450 French towns and cities since kicking off in Marseilles on May 8. The sun’s rays ignited the flame in a ceremony at the Temple of Hera in Olympia, Greece, on April 16.

In its journey through Paris, the flame also passed the French National assembly. The building is the site of “La Beaute et le Geste,” a public art installation by Laurent Perbo for the Cultural Olympiad.

“La Beaute et le Geste” exhibition by French artist Laurent Perbos, is displayed in front of the French National assembly ahead of the Paris 2024 Olympic Games. The installation features six versions of the classical Venus de Milo sculpture to which the artist has added arms, allowing her to engage in tennis, surfing, para archery, basketball, boxing, and javelin throwing. Photo by Chesnot/Getty Images.

It features six monochromatic statues of the Venus de Milo in bright yellow, purple, green, orange, red, and blue. In a contemporary twist, the classical goddess figure now has arms that allow her to engage in athletic pursuits.

The relay also featured a performance by French artist Vincent Abadie Hafez, or Zepha, creating a monumental mural in front of the Arab World Institute.

 

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Come nightfall, the flame made its way to the Pompidou, where a performance combining hip hop and classical music took place outside in front of Raphaël Zarka’s skateboarding sculpture Cycloïd Piazza.

The festivities ended with fireworks and a drone light show above the Eiffel Tower.

The Olympic torch with the Winged Nike of Samothrace at the Louvre. Photo by Nicolas Bousser, ©Musée du Louvre.

Other torchbearers on the day included BTS K-Pop singer Jin, Auschwitz survivor Léon Lewkowicz, 106-year-old retired politician Jean Turco, and Ludovic Franceschet, a local sanitation worker and TikTok star.

At the end of opening ceremony, set to take place on the River Seine on July 26, the flame will ignite the Olympic cauldron, also designed by Lehanneur. According to France 24, the flame will burn in the Tuileries Garden in front of the Louvre for the duration of Olympic and Paralympic Games.