The Louvre owe Beyoncé and Jay-Z a big merci!

With an jaw dropping 10.2 million visitors in 2018, the Louvre in Paris celebrated a record year in terms of visitors. The last record was set in 2012, which consisted of an overall figure of 9.7 million guests. Arguably one of the most famous museums in the world, home to the Mona Lisa, Nike from Samothrake and Liberty Leading the People, the Louvre already attracts millions of tourists and French nationals to the site yearly. The Louvre management credited this year’s victory to be solely from their popular exhibition of work by French artist Eugène Delacroix. We think however it was also down to a popular chart-topping duo.

Beyoncé and Jay-Z on vacation at the Louvre, and in their new music video “Apeshit,” posing both times with the Mona Lisa. Photo via the artists.
Beyoncé and Jay-Z who perform together under the name The Carters, debuted their album Everything is Love in 2018. The album’s first single to be released, ‘Apeshit’ was shot in the Louvre, helping  we think to contribute to the museums 2018 success and sending the artworld into a frenzy. Today the video has been watched over 151 million times. The video not only showcases the couple’s particular brand of fine-art appreciation but also asserts their rightful place among the masterworks at the world’s most prestigious art institution. Several of the museums most famous works are shown in the video but in a completely new and surprising context, blurring the boundary between popular and fine culture, bringing it into mainstream culture. The museum has even taken advantage of their new fan base by introducing a new tour. In July, the ninety-minute tour named Jay-Z and Beyoncé at the Louvre, included 17 works of art that appear in the music video.

This may be the first time the Louvre has been features in an R&B music video, but it is not the first time the Louvre has been featured within popular film. Think The Dreamers, The Da Vinci Code and more classical films such as Funny Face, which we are sure attracted a new fan base of visitors equally.
Although the Louvre’s managements didn’t want to admit the impact the music video has on the number of visitors, “Apeshit” most certainly broadened its audience. Leading artist Jeanette Hayes even joked on Twitter that Beyoncé’s music videos could be the key to venerable museum’s continued relevance in the 21st century.