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Street artist JR was in Paris celebrating the 30th anniversary of the Louvre’s glass pyramid this weekend with a mind-boggling optical illusion that ‘sunk’ the landmark into a quarry.
The ephemeral anamorphic collage was created by the artist and a team of 400 volunteers using 2,000 sheets of paper to create a jagged canyon, from which the pyramid appears to emerge when viewed from above.
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And though it took five days to make, the fragile 17,000 sqm artwork was destroyed within hours as visitors trod on it – eventually returning the courtyard to its former state.
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It’s not the first time that JR has used the landmark in his artwork: in 2016 he made the I M Pei-designed structure ‘disappear’ by wrapping it in an anamorphic image of the 16th-century palace behind it, obscuring the pyramid from view.
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