Beyonce and Jay-Z call Western art to task in new video

Celina Colby

Celina Colby is an arts and travel reporter with a fondness for Russian novels.... VIEW BIO

Last Saturday, Beyonce and Jay-Z, king and queen of keeping secrets, dropped their latest album, a joint creation called “Everything is Love.” With it debuted a music video for the song “Apeshit” shot inside the Louvre museum in Paris. That’s right, the Carters were granted private access to one of the world’s most visited museums. And they didn’t waste it. “Apeshit” is a radical appropriation of the Western art tradition, calling to task a cultural history that has made little space for artists of color.

Jay-Z and Beyoncé recently released the joint album, “Everything is Love.” Photo: courtesy Beyonce

The music begins with a wide shot of the gallery containing Leonardo Da Vinci’s iconic “Mona Lisa.” The camera zooms in to show Beyonce and Jay-Z standing casually in front of the painting in pink and blue pastel suits, two contemporary icons posing with their Renaissance counterpart. Later in the video, Beyonce dances in front of two of the museum’s most prized pieces: The Winged Victory of Samothrace, a classical Hellenistic sculpture of the goddess Nike, and Venus de Milo, a sculpture of Aphrodite circa 100 B.C.E.

Nike represents victory, a key theme in “Apeshit,” and Beyonce sings in front of her, “Gimme my check, put some respect on my check,” heralding her contemporary victory climb to financial success. Posing in front of Nike also calls to mind the famous African females who have not been immortalized in the same way. 

Supporting the Carters is a legion of black backup dancers in skin colored suits. Their minimalistic costumes underscore the fact that these black bodies are rarely seen in museums like the Louvre that highlight the Western art tradition above all else. The dancers are frequently paired with paintings by Jacques Louis David, a famous French history painter during the time of Napoleon. This serves a dual purpose. On one hand it’s a shoutout to France and the Louvre for their assistance in creating the video. On the other hand, David’s portraits of white power, such as “The Coronation of Napoleon,” allude to the oppression and disregard for people of African descent under those rules.

Another art piece incorporated into “Apeshit” is a granite sphinx, Old Kingdom Egyptian circa 2600 B.C.E. It’s the largest of its kind in the museum. The Louvre houses one of the largest collections of Egyptian art outside Africa; of course, this raises concerning questions about provenance and acquisition. (Remember that Napoleon painting?)

It also draws an interesting parallel to the Carters’ relationship. (Finally, I can use my art history training to interpret celebrity gossip.) Though this sphinx is solo, depictions of Egyptian couples are some of the only ones of that time period to illustrate men and women as equals. Take for example, King Menkaura (Mycerinus) and Queen, an Old Kingdom sculpture housed at Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts. The couple is of the same height and depicted standing evenly next to each other. The queen even braces the king’s torso, as though keeping him standing.

This unusually equitable depiction is common in Egyptian artwork. Given the gossip that Jay-Z cheated on Beyonce, which came to light in her last album, “Lemonade,” posing with an art historical tradition known for equal partnership may be a nod towards their newly strengthened relationship.

That sphinx is the only piece of African art depicted in the video. The commentary is clearly focused on Western art depiction of black bodies, or lack thereof. Not only have the Carters succeeded in claiming the Louvre as their own in the video, “Apeshit” is among the first items to come up on Google when you search for “Louvre.” Take that, art history!