Jason horowitz
07/28/2021 14:30
Clarín.com
The New York Times International Weekly
Updated 07/28/2021 2:35 PM
In a city of spectacular offices, Christian Masset, French ambassador to Italy, has perhaps the most spectacular of all:
In the middle of
Palazzo Farnese
, a high Renaissance masterpiece, his workplace features cavernous marble chimneys and columns, wall-to-wall frescoes, and a central window and balcony, both modified by
Michelangelo,
that overlook two fountains. made with old batteries.
Some nights the office lights are left on, allowing Romans who stroll through one of the most elegant squares to get a glimpse of its
glorious interiors.
The work JR, a mural in the center of Rome.
Photo Susan Wright / The New York Times.
So it was no small thing that the French artist JR proposed blocking half of the view.
Yes, it was a long discussion, said the almost anonymous artist, with his characteristic felt hat, sunglasses and a trimmed beard.
He spoke in front of
the Farnese Palace
one recent afternoon to inaugurate his new work, a black and white mural of more than
2,500 square meters
that runs along the facade of the building, or more accurately, the scaffolding installed for the
restoration of the palace.
At first, according to JR, embassy officials told him that no part of the office could be covered, but he argued that deflecting the mural around the windows would ruin the optical illusion of a crack that worked like an X-ray, revealing the frescoes. from the ambassadors 'office, the barrel vaults and Doric columns, but also elements of the palaces' past, including a large statue of
Hercules
that once stood in the courtyard, but is now in a museum in Naples.
JR won the argument and the ambassador lost half of his sight.
I still have a window, Masset said with a shrug.
JR's project is part of
Open for Work,
the restoration of the facades and roof of Palazzo Farnese, which will last four years and will cost 5.6 million euros, about 6.6 million dollars.
Flanked by a convent and the most luxurious and Fellinian café in Rome, the sublime 16th century palace will become an open canvas to contemporary artists who take inspiration from its history.
On the night of July 13, three large white helium balloons, bright as moons, suspended in the air an
18-meter cardboard bridge
over the Tiber River, fulfilling with fantasy an unrealized project by Michelangelo to connect the Farnese Palace and the gardens of
Villa Farnesina
, another sumptuous property on the opposite shore.
Some critics, who see JR's work as more publicity and obvious than inspired and nuanced, worry that the venerable building carries something that is too old for it, with an unseemly
slit
in the center that evokes the suits of its neighbor. drunk more than his majestic history.
But the French say they are injecting some life into architectural surgery and helping, in a spirit of brotherhood, to jump-start a Roman art scene in need of a little lifeblood.
Because I think the Farnese Bridge and this are the two biggest projects of this kind that have been carried out in Rome in this period, "Masset said, standing silently, as journalists and photographers crowded around JR.
The warm, if somewhat condescending, help from Frances reflects a new political symbiosis between France and Italy under the newly installed pro-European government of Italian Prime Minister
Mario Draghi,
who has become the mentor and sidekick of French President
Emmanuel Macron
.
In 2019,
Luigi Di Maio
, then powerful Italian Deputy Prime Minister and leader of the populist
Five Star Movement
, traveled to France to meet with a leader of the
Yellow Vests
protesters
who had called for civil war.
Yellow vests, don't give up!
Di Maio urged, prompting Macron to call Masset, the ambassador, briefly to Paris in protest.
Back then,
Matteo Salvini,
the once powerful interior minister and nationalist leader, said that France should get rid of its very bad president.
His La Liga
matchmate Lucia Borgonzoni,
then, and still now, Deputy Minister of Italian Culture, struggled to send
Leonardo da Vinci's
masterpieces
to France for a major retrospective at the
Louvre
.
But on July 14, France's national day, and hours after the Farnese bridge project took off over the Tiber, Di Maio, now an underpowered
foreign minister
, attended a celebration at the Farnese Palace.
Salvini now nominally supports Draghi, and members of Parliament from his League party were among the guests at an evening following the inauguration of JR's work on July 21.
These kinds of heady scenarios are also a long way from JR's origins.
He rose to fame in the mid-2000s for his exaggerated and up-close photos of the residents of a housing project in a disadvantaged Paris suburb.
He then carried out huge public photography projects in areas of the world affected by poverty or conflict, such as the favelas of Brazil, the slums of Kenya and the Gaza Strip.
Alicia Keys
opened her solo show at the
Brooklyn Museum
and last year designed the 91-foot La Ferita or La Herida, a similar fault effect at the
Palazzo Strozzi
in Florence, Italy.
But last week he said nothing had prepared him for the ambassador's extraordinary dispatch.
"When I walked in, I was
mesmerized,
" he said.
The palace frescoes were "the kind of wall painting that inspired me," he added.
"That's why I do what I do."
He prepared himself for the project by studying the facade of Palazzo Farnese and strolling through the square incognito, that is, without a hat or sunglasses.
Presentation
But now he is no longer hiding.
Wearing the standard Stan Smith sneakers in France, he took his trademark leap in front of the building for photographers to kneel down and his 1.6 million
followers to
see.
He spoke Italian well to reporters and said "Super" in a French accent to his entourage.
Looking enchanted was
Hélène Kelmachter,
the embassy's cultural attaché, who wore artistic glasses with bass clefs shaped at the temples, a billowy dress made of blue waves, and shoes stamped with
Wonder Womans'
face
.
Rome is a place for heritage is a place of history, he said.
But history can meet the present.
Switching to English, JR said that the art history public can know everything about the Farnese Palace, its papal inhabitants, its Renaissance architects and its amazing frescoes.
But his work, he said, spoke and caught the people who passed by.
On Wednesday, they stopped by to see him.
Are you?
Yes, it's me.
I follow you on social media, said Valentina Ilari, a 49-year-old lawyer who saw JR in the plaza.
Can we take a selfie?
Yes, yes, yes, "said JR.
"Wait, I don't know how to do it," Ilari said, fingering his phone.
I'm overwhelmed.
The ambassador seemed more content.
Standing with his hands folded and dressed in a navy blue suit, away from the crowd, Masset acknowledged that, yes, he felt a little regret over the way the JR mural had obstructed his view.
But when you see the result, he added diplomatically, I am very happy.
c.2021 The New York Times Company
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