In 2019, famous Pyramid of the Louvre celebrates its 30th anniversary. The Grand opening of the monument of architecture took place on April 1, 1989, and since then it has become one of the most recognizable symbols of Paris.

The French authorities decided to celebrate the anniversary creatively and invited the modern street artist JR. The cooperation resulted into a large-scale optical illusion, which turned Napoleon Square into a huge rocky canyon. The perspective created by the artist perfectly emphasized the main object of the installation — the Pyramid itself, as if rising from the dark bowels of the earth.

400 volunteers had been working on the reconstruction of the project for four days — from 26 to 29 March. To completely cover the area in front of the Louvre (which is 17 thousand square meters), it took more than 2,000 paper pieces.

The artist himself JR shared photos of the creative process with pleasure:

JR with Pyramid Creator, Chinese architect Leoh Ming Pei:

However, the "Secret of the Great Pyramid" did not live long. Within a couple of hours after the opening, the scorching sun dried the glue, and the paper stripes of the collage began to tear away from the masonry. Visitors of the Louvre also contributed to the destruction of that anniversary illusion: thousands of feet quickly turned the collage into rags, and some of the tourists took the pieces as souvenirs.

The artist himself reacted to that calmly: "The images are ephemeral as life itself. Once created, a work of art continues to live its life. This project is also about presence and absence, about reality and memories, about transience".