What APESHIT tells us about art, fashion, and representation

“APESHIT” - first single from the album “Everything is Love" by Beyoncé and Jay Z - could be a scream stuck in the throat that now echoes. After all, it is intense and questioning. But better than that: it is a milestone. It’s just over six minutes in which the most powerful couple in current pop music can even CLOSE THE LOUVRE and confirm that the most important artistic productions of the last decade have certainly been created by Black artists.
https://youtu.be/kbMqWXnpXcA
In 2017, the Louvre Museum in Paris received more than 8 million visitors, and amid one of the most popular global events, the World Cup, - contradicting any possible communication strategy - the couple shows us much more than a well-directed, impeccable video full of analogies. “The Carters” - in their first clip - points fingers at the society that “chooses” what and who is in museums and proves that they can reinterpret the main works of Art in History with Black people, without needing to hide or conceal anything from anyone.  After all, they are there in their usual place; however, they receive their rightful “updates” a la Beyoncé - who goes to Paris to re-signify her family heritage - French Creole - and thank her ancestors.
Watching the clip for the first time, it was unquestionable to think of the archaic structure that cultural production follows in most cases. That is: it cuts out what it wants and shows what is interesting to itself. Even if this excludes a good part of the History and ancestry of various peoples. In “APESHIT,” the questioning is clear: Where are the Black characters in Art? Have they always been portrayed as slaves? As recurrent and current as this question is throughout the clip, the only apparent representation of a Black woman is in the painting “Portrait of a Black Woman,” by Marie-Guillemine Benoist, from 1800. That is, since 1800, these people have not been represented? Is it necessary for Beyoncé to point this out in a clip for us to think? And where are the works of Black artists? Do they only have space in exhibitions whose theme is the Black people? Unfortunately, it is possible to count on one hand the names that are exhibited in what is the largest museum in the world.
Below we list in order the moments that some of the main artistic representations are reinterpreted by the couple:
1 – THE SACRIFICE OF NAPOLEON

In the 18th century, the first exhibition of the Louvre, post-French Revolution, was made with more than 500 works from the French nobility and other confiscated pieces. This collection was expanded under Napoleon's government and was renamed as "Napoleon Museum". Only after the abdication, many of the works seized by the Napoleonic armies were returned to their original owners.
In the clip, it seems that dancing in front of the painting says it all about a people who had their works and History plundered and are only now managing to reclaim them, right? And what to say about this same painting that shows Joséphine de Beauharnais, Napoleon's wife, receiving her crown from her husband? The painting from 1807 by French artist Jacques-Louis David depicts the moment of Napoleon's coronation I as emperor, but one of the central figures in the painting is his empress. Quite similar to what happens in the clip, right? Where - whether you care or not - no one wants to know about Jay Z when you have Beyoncé.
2 – THE VICTORY OF SAMOTRACIA

Beyoncé performs angrily “an apeshit” - in free translation: an act of insanity and intense reaction towards something - below the sculpture "The Victory of Samothrace" - an artwork by an unknown artist that depicts the Greek goddess Nike represented by a winged woman who personifies victory, strength, and speed.
Another choice that leaves us stunned.
An interesting fact is that the Greek piece was found by an archaeologist and was destroyed in more than 118 pieces and reassembled in the Louvre Museum when it arrived there in 1864. However, one of the mysteries surrounding Samothrace has never been solved: its head seems to have been lost forever.
“Studies suggest” (laughs) that it is not only the fragments of the history of the sculpture that are being reclaimed, but also much of the History of marginalized peoples, who today are finally conquering their space.
3 – GREAT SPHINX OF TANIS

In some shots, the couple appears with the sphinx in the background and Beyoncé has a silk scarf wrapped around her hair and is dressed in the iconic "Barocco" pattern from the Italian brand Versace that is characterized by luxury, gold, and excess.

“Curiously” the fact is that one of the most famous areas of the Louvre is African - the Egyptian department - whose works are testaments to the history of the Empire. However, very few contemporary works in the collection are by African artists or about the ancestry of other areas of Africa.
4 – THE RAFT OF MEDUSA

        After a scene where Black men are crouched in the outer area of the museum, Jay Z appears with the painting “The Raft of Medusa” in the background, this work by Théodore Géricault represents the survivors (and the dead) of the wreck of the Medusa who cry out for help upon seeing in the distance the silhouette of another ship that could rescue them. In 1816, the frigate had set sail from France, heading towards Senegal, Africa, with intentions of colonizing the country. Reports from the time state that Géricault was inspired to create the painting after hearing news about the shipwreck. The painting represents the moment right after the ship began to sink, when the crew and passengers failed to save themselves with the emergency boats and all struggled adrift.
Any historical similarities here? Laughter
5- MONA LISA

After images of restraints, one of the dancers dances freely before the Mona Lisa. Like never before, in the empty museum, the performer claims her space and autonomously creates whatever she wants before the “enigmatic” figure of Da Vinci. There is also the scene where another couple brushes their hair with their backs turned to the painting. This image was also used to compose the album cover. In it, it’s as if they looked at themselves, at their roots, and identified more with that than with everything around them. All that art that was imposed on them by society and never represented them.
6 – VENUS DE MILO

       Before the sculpture of “Venus de Milo” - one of the most important and venerated goddesses of Classical Antiquity - which symbolizes the ideal of facial and bodily beauty of the time - Beyoncé simply takes her place: a contemporary Venus in a nude look that sculpts her and, like the Greeks, needs no ornaments.
7 – THE LOOKS
The seventh point is about fashion and how it has been used artistically to showcase the strength of the modern woman:

In the main scenes in front of the Mona Lisa, Beyoncé wears a reinterpretation of a suit - clothing almost always worn by men  - and Jay Z does too. But her look comes in a great choice of hue: pink, which has always been linked to fragility and femininity. She also wears a combination of jewelry similar to that used by Marilyn Monroe in the song “Diamonds are a girl’s best friend,” in the film “Gentlemen Prefer Blondes.” Here she pairs a combo of historically feminine symbols to show that she is the real “boss” - as in the song - and for that, she can also re-signify whatever she wants, including icons masculinized by society. It’s worth remembering that in the 60s, when Yves Saint Laurent launched the female tuxedo - at the height of the feminist movement - there was uproar and controversy in society. However, what distinguished it from Coco Chanel’s creation in the 1920s was just a lapel.
In front of Napoleon, Beyoncé is entirely dressed in the most characteristic check pattern of the English brand Burberry, while her dancers wear only lycra. In this segment, the “offense” this time is to use something English and still sing “I wear expensive clothes.” And you might remember that from schooltime... Remember the Continental Blockade? With it, Napoleon aimed to "break" the resistance of England - as a world power - suffocating it economically. In other words, he prohibited other European countries from trading with the English in 1806. And in the clip, “the royalty” wears Saxon clothing.
Below the Nike of Samothrace, Beyoncé uses  two looks that are extremes, just like the performance. In the first, she wears a dress with a light and ethereal angelic tone. In the other, still dressed in white, she appears disheveled with frizzy hair and a voluminous skirt structured in a way that references how garments are sculpted in marble; the haute couture is by Stephane Rolland and the cape is by Alexis Mabille.

Through her appearance, Beyoncé shows that women are complex and transformative, whether in the Arts or through the way they dress. Everything can be contested, especially when it is not confined to an art easel but rather, on the street.
Note: the clip also featured pieces by Peter Pilotto, Dries Van Noten, Balmain, John Galliano, MCM, Y Project, and Alexander McQueen.