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JR’s ‘La Caverne du Pont Neuf’ Is a Portal Into Paris’s Geologic History

Forty years after Christo and Jeanne-Claude wrapped Paris’s oldest bridge, JR has transformed it into an all-encompassing grotto that asks the city to reconsider its own material past.

In 1985, Christo and Jeanne-Claude wrapped the Pont Neuf in Paris in one of their iconic installations, covering the bridge with approximately 40,000 square meters of golden-beige woven polyamide fabric, secured with rope. The work emphasized the bridge’s shape, arches and sculptural qualities and, through its erasure, highlighted the importance of historical presence in the urban landscape.

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Forty years later, artist JR is honoring that legacy with his own takeover of the Parisian monument. La Caverne du Pont Neuf, on view through June 28, transforms the city’s oldest bridge into a giant grotto in an immersive multimedia and olfactory experience that serves as an emotional memorial. The aim is to draw attention to the bridge’s material origins—stones tied to the local landscape and geology—while bearing witness to the city’s stratified history. Juxtaposing the raw and wild with the refined elegance of the City of Light, it creates a dialogue between past and present.

While some Parisians have complained about the disruption to daily commutes and traffic, traversing the installation has been for many more a powerful experience. Known for such disruptive urban interventions, JR accepts that the debate a public art project will provoke is of equal value to its realization. For him, art is a way of refreshing how we look at the world around us, and we spoke to him after the unveiling of La Caverne du Pont Neuf to better understand the vision and intentions behind the monumental project.

Moving fluidly between photography, public art, social intervention and relational art, JR’s colossal black-and-white images, pasted directly onto buildings, streets, rooftops and monuments, turn urban space into both canvas and stage, reactivating imagination and awe through visual storytelling. But he built his reputation with eye-catching trompe l’oeil installations that interrupt and redesign iconic structures, landscapes and charged spaces. Often, they carry a political message or extend some form of community invitation.

In what could easily be described as a context-specific public performance, he works with scale, visibility and public participation........

© Observer