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Monday, 10 March 2008 |
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The wall of Je t’aime in Montmartre is one
man’s attempt to provide a Parisian answer
to Venice’s Bridge of sighs or Agra’s Taj Mahal
– a testament to love. This initiative of artist
Frédéric Baron is a 40m2 wall of 511 tiles in
enamelled lava, with a fresco of ‘I love you’
written 1,000 times in more than 300
languages. The phrases were not written by
Baron himself, but collected in notebooks and
written by friends, family and contacts. They
were then traced onto the wall to create the
striking image which can be seen in the Square
Jehan Rictus or in detail on this website. The
shape of the lava tiles evokes the sheets of paper on which Frédéric Baron collected his texts.
The splashes of colour on the fresco are the pieces of a broken heart, “those of a humanity which
is too often torn apart and which The Wall attempts to reunite”, according to the site. In a world
marked by violence and dominated by individualism, walls, like frontiers, are usually made to
divide and separate people and to protect them from one another. This wall is designed to be a
link, a place of reconciliation, a mirror which reflects an image of love and peace. Visitors to the
website can take a virtual video tour of the wall, or send ecards of I Love You written in
hieroglyphics, sign language and many other forms.
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