In the video, Beyoncé appears with her dancers in front of Jacques Louis David’s The Coronation of Napoleon-which features Napoleon crowning Josephine-while singing about her “expensive fabrics”. Beyoncé’s French-Creole ancestry (on her mother’s side) give her ties to the slave trade and Napoleon III, who colonized Europe, North Africa, and other areas during his reign from 1852 to 1870. The Neoclassical pieces featured in the “Apeshit” visuals appear for a potent purpose. Rest assured, nothing The Carters do is by accident.

When you dig deeper into how Bey and JAY incorporated the Louvre’s famed work in “Apeshit,” there is plenty of powerful symbolism to unpack. On sight, filming a video in such a famous venue is the ultimate flex-which one of your faves not named JAY-Z or Beyoncé could ever pull this off? The museum is home to some of the world's most famous works of art, including the Mona Lisa and Virgin and Child with St Anne. How did the “Apeshit” video end up getting shot in the Louvre, though? A spokesperson for The Louvre told Vulture that The Carters presented a concept that “showed a real attachment to the museum and its beloved artworks” in May of 2018.Įven if you aren’t an art historian, you’ve probably heard of the Louvre It’s the largest art museum in the world, bringing in over 8.1 million visitors in 2017 alone. JAY and Bey’s appreciation for art-evidenced by the pair dropping $4.5 million on a Basquiat piece ( Mecca, 1982) back in 2013-has even rubbed off on their daughter, Blue Ivy, who purchased a piece by Tiffanie Anderson for nearly $20,000. Holy Grail single “Picasso Baby,” a song about his growing love for art, into a performance art piece alongside Serbian performance artist Marina Abramović.

Beyonce jay z apeshit video