It’s what you might call a crazy coincidence of the calendar. This fall, two major, highly anticipated cultural events have madness as their central theme. From October 16, 2024 to February 3, 2025, the Louvre will present “Figures of the Madman: from the Middle Ages to the Romantics,” a unique exhibition on the many figures of the madman in the history of art. While on October 2, the film will be released in theaters Joker: Madness for Two by Todd Phillips, starring Joaquin Phoenix and Lady Gaga. To mark this double milestone, the museum invited the lead actress and Warner Bros. to create a dreamlike video in its rooms.
Many artistic references
She appears pensive in front of the Pyramid of Ieoh Ming Pei in the middle of the night. Lady Gaga wears a black and white dress with a Peter Pan collar, reminiscent of the one from Mercredi de The Addams Family (1991) of Barry Sonnenfeld or the outfit of Norman Bates’ mummified mother in Psychosis (1960) by Alfred Hitchcock. In her character of Lee Quinzel, she then runs down the stairs of the Winged Victory of Samothracewhere Audrey Hepburn posed for Fred Astaire’s camera in Funny face (1957) by Stanley Donen. This moment directly evokes the iconic scene from Joker (2019) where Arthur Fleck, the character played by Joaquin Phoenix, dances down the steps of a staircase in the Bronx, on the tube Rock and Roll Part II by Gary Glitter.
Lady Gaga descending the Winged Victory Staircase at the Louvre Museum. © Musée du Louvre/YouTube/Warner Bros.
The Joker’s Smile
The actress and singer joins the Grand Gallery before ending her stroll in the Salle des Etats, where ” the most iconic of works of art : “Mona Lisa,” the Louvre Museum said in a press release. Lady Gaga then salutes The Mona Lisa by Leonardo da Vinci and, armed with a stick of lipstick, draws the unmistakable red smile of the Joker. This act of staged vandalism obviously did not compromise the integrity and security of the work, protected by armored glass since 1974. This face-off is a nod to the many diversions that artists have made of the mysterious painting, such as LHOOQ (1919) where Marcel Duchamp gives the Mona Lisa a moustache to parody the masterpiece.
Inspired by her character Lee Quinzel, Lady Gaga enters the rooms of the Louvre museum to experience a “Folie à deux” with the Mona Lisa.
Why this meeting between the universe of the Joker and the Mona Lisa ? Their names actually share the same etymology: Jocus, Latin term that refers to the notions of amusement and banter. To promote both the exhibition and the film, the museum therefore asked Warner Bros and Lady Gaga to play on this fortuitous coincidence. Are today’s fools yesterday’s fools? The upcoming exhibition will attempt to answer this question by exploring the multiple facets of this fascinating, disturbing and subversive figure who alternately entertains, warns, denounces, and reverses values or the established order. The figure of the madman finds new resonances in our contemporary sensibilities, notably through that of the Joker “, adds the museum.
Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes, The Fool’s Enclosure, Dallas, Meadows Museum © Meadows Museum, SMU photo Robert LaPrelle
A crazy season at the Louvre
This video introduces the Louvre’s “Crazy Season”, a cultural program that will include a creation by François Chaignaud entitled Little players– a piece in the form of an immersive and continuous journey through the medieval Louvre – and a “Night of Fools”, a contemporary carnival between dances, music and performances with the presence of artists such as Zaho de Sagazan and Arthur H.
Joker Folie à Deux x Louvre | Lady Gaga, Mona Lisa
