beyonce jay z apeshit video cinemtographer

Portraits of people of color may not blanket the walls of the Louvre (save for nameless, passive subjects as in Marie-Guillemine Benoist’s Portrait D’Une Négresse, also glimpsed in the video ), but Beyoncé and Jay-Z here issue a corrective, disrupting the Western art world’s practice of tokenistic black representation and instead, spotlighting their already-renown bodies and beings-right, front, and center-as heirs to the kingdom. My projection of that was that they were embodiments of goddesses.” As choreographer Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui told Pitchfork of the dancers in the video, “When they are inside of that space-just right on the stairs or suddenly moving in the group-you have the feeling that they could be those ancient mythological goddesses of the hunt or of wisdom. The Carters flank the canvas (mirroring a selfie they snapped in the same spot in 2014), pictured in a manner and image that dares to be as potently and powerfully iconic as the painting itself. Of course, there’s Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa too, which bookends the video. Video for “Apeshit” by The Carters, 2018, featuring the Winged Victory of Samothrace, directed by Ricky Saiz. Their conquest is writ large enough in the featured artworks from Jacques-Louis David’s The Coronation of the Emperor Napoleon to the imposing Greek sculpture Winged Victory of Samothrace, while throughout the track, rings the refrain, “I can’t believe we made it.” Video for “Apeshit” by The Carters, 2018, featuring The Coronation of the Emperor Napoleon by Jacques-Louis David, directed by Ricky Saiz. In still and stately poses, the couple stages an intervention and claims themselves a place in the Louvre’s halls, announcing their arrival in the hallowed tradition of art, whether you like it or not. The art featured in this video, though, is not hung with air quotes or treated with an over-awed hand, but pictured alongside a more contemporary art form: the power union of Beyoncé and Jay-Z. Video for “Apeshit” by The Carters, 2018, featuring the Venus de Milo, directed by Ricky Saiz. In the Carters’ universe, where wealth resides, art is not very far behind. In “Apeshit,” too, lyrics on “expensive fabrics” and “expensive habits,” and a litany of luxury brand names (Richard Mille, Lamborghini, Alexander Wang, to name a few) are aligned with snatches of art and opulent views of the Louvre. Of the latter, both Beyoncé and Jay-Z are no strangers to: their videos for “7/11” and “Picasso Baby” name dropped art casually enough. And rightly so, for there is a lot to unpack-from the video’s juxtaposition of black bodies against an Eurocentric art tradition to the added framing of art as commodity. Since neither the couple nor director Ricky Saiz have shed light how these artworks were picked for the film, rants, raves, and essays have been generated on its significance and symbolism. Filmed in the Louvre, the short sees the Carters posing, cavorting, and generally hanging out amid the museum’s world-beating art collection. The Louvre just announced a “JAY-Z and Beyoncé at the Louvre” tour, which visits all the art in their music video.Last month, the internet naturally went apeshit for “Apeshit,” the first video to emerge from Beyoncé and Jay-Z’s surprise joint project, Everything is Love.

But now, fans of the Carters and everyday aesthetes need not wonder.

The whole six-minute video is a visual, and historical, whirlwind of different artistic movements- Romantic! Hellenistic! Renaissance! While some works are easily identifiable, others are only seen in quick flashes or extreme close ups, leaving viewers curious as to what exactly they just saw. And what better way to claim their status within the hierarchy of the arts than to stand amongst Western fine art's greatest hits when delivering their own greatest hit? As Beyoncé and Jay-Z weave through the building, they are calling attention to the stark lack of colored people depicted throughout the museum's masterworks. Carter, statuesque in front of the Mona Lisa, rapping in front of Winged Victory of Samothrace, drifting through arched halls “first as spectators and then as works of art themselves.” And while there is much to admire about the video (the Carter's ineffable cool, the cinematic cinematography, of course, the song itself), perhaps most poignant is the symbolism. When Beyoncé and Jay-Z dropped their music video for “Apeshit,” shot on location at the Louvre Museum, the world went, well. Beyoncé and Jay-Z in front of the Great Sphinx of Tanis.

Beyonce jay z apeshit video cinemtographer