Artist JR has created a giant 3D optical illusion from paper that imagines the iconic pyramid at the Musée du Louvre in Paris continuing underground, but it has already been destroyed.
Named The Secret of the Great Pyramid, the trompe l'oeil was made from 2,000 stickers surrounding Pritzker Prize-winning architect IM Pei's glass building, making it appear to project out from a white excavated crater.
At 17,000-square-metres, it was French street artist JR's largest collage to date. But within a day it was left in shreds after visitors traipsed across it.

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A post shared by JR (@jr) on Mar 31, 2019 at 12:25pm PDT

JR said it was his intention for the piece to have a short life. "The images, like life, are ephemeral. Once pasted, the art piece lives on its own. The sun dries the light glue and with every step, people tear pieces of the fragile paper. The process is all about participation of volunteers, visitors, and souvenir catchers," he said on Twitter.
"This project is also about presence and absence, about reality and memories, about impermanence."

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A post shared by JR (@jr) on Mar 29, 2019 at 3:24pm PDT

The project was created to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the Louvre pyramid. On Saturday, JR shared a photo on his Instagram taken from a storeroom on the third floor of the museum, inviting the public to take ...