One afternoon in early June, a torrential downpour hit Paris. Sucked empty of its crowds, the rain crashed on to the paving stones of the French capital like bullets, exploding in tiny shards of silvery water, while the wind turned stray umbrellas inside out.
It was as dramatic as any operatic production at Palais Garnier, and as immersive as any monumental digital light projection, but this was no creative act of man; this was the brute force of nature and we felt its power. During the “exceptional weather event”, sections of the outer skin of a giant inflatable artwork erected over the Pont Neuf were ripped away, destroying its trompe l’oeil effect and delaying its launch.
La Caverne du Pont Neuf is French street artist JR’s latest installation, and it finally opened on June 16 – just in time for the heatwave. The project was conceived as a tribute to the artist duo Christo and Jeanne-Claude, who parcelled up the same bridge in 41,800 square metres of polyamide fabric nearly 41 years ago, in September 1985.
But where Christo and Jeanne-Claude’s The Pont-Neuf Wrapped emphasised the structure of the bridge, transforming it into a rather beautiful poetic object, JR’s La Caverne conceals it and crouches over the elegant Pont Neuf like an icy incubus.
Pont Neuf is Paris’s oldest bridge. Completed in 1607, it was the first to be built of stone, a lovely honey-coloured Lutetian limestone carved with 381 bulbous-eyed bearded masks.
JR’s La Caverne du Pont Neuf references this history. The artist has collaged together photographic images that suggest the rocky surfaces of the limestone quarries in the Paris Basin where the Pont Neuf stone came from, then enlarged them for reproduction on 18,900 square metres of polyester canvas. It is this craggy printed outer surface that has been torn in places to reveal the white underskin, which has been filled with air to form the sculptural 3D jagged outcrops.
Within the structure is a printed fabric tunnel through which visitors can cross the Seine, free of charge, experiencing a “mineralised” soundscape by Thomas Bangalter, the former member of Daft Punk, and an olfactory atmosphere created by curator Sarah Bouasse in collaboration with the perfume house Odore Scola.
“Art is a transformation and a way of renewing the way we look at the world around us,” JR has said. The irony is that this project, involving 800 people and a staggering tally of work hours, skill sets and planning (La Caverne was originally scheduled to open in 2025) was itself reshaped in a participatory way by the weather.
The resulting damage recalls the printed tears and breaches that feature in previous works by the artist. In 2021, he created a trompe-l’oeil fabric showing a dizzying precipice beneath the Eiffel Tower (Les Falaises du Trocadéro) and in 2023 he conjured up the mouth of a vast grotto blasted into the facade of the Palais Garnier (Retour à la Caverne).
Inspired by the allegory of Plato’s cave, JR has argued that the real world has become a dark hollow where people are looking at shadows on their phones, which are not reality. Arguably, JR has also been in the hollow and now finds himself confronted by a reality that bites back.
In recent years, the Seine has seen the rise of a tented community of homeless along its banks, controversially removed during the 2024 Olympic Games, but beggars still populate the bridges. JR’s team has repeated that no public funds have been used in La Caverne du Pont Neuf.
Instead, private sponsors including Bloomberg Philanthropies, Snap Inc, Paris Aéroport and L’Amicale des Ponts de Paris endowment fund are committed to meeting the costs of the project, alongside monies raised from the sale of JR’s artworks, which range from small products like keyrings, postcards, pin badges, lighters, posters and totes to the pricier coffee-table tomes, printed blankets, and original framed artworks. It makes for quite a supermarket.
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JR started out as a 15-year-old graffiti artist, tagging the tunnels and rooftops of Paris. He moved into photography when he found a camera left behind on the Métro, pasting images on to walls to communicate directly with the public on social and political issues. In this way, he discovered “the power of paper and paste” and when the wind and rain effaced his work, he embraced their ephemerality. La Caverne du Pont Neuf is also temporary, but as the world’s largest immersive artwork, there is rather more at stake and it is less easy to be so laissez-faire.
After the storm and days of extreme heat, Parisians are back to picnicking along the banks of the Seine, the pleasure boats rock along the water to the raucous singing of its passengers, and there’s a spirited brass band playing from the side. These are the more joyful memories I carry back to London through Eurostar’s tunnel, pleased to find the train journey fully windproof.
Deborah Nash’s writing appears in magazines including The Wire and Stand
