Folie à Deux's energy for the Louvre gives the Mona Lisa a new smile

It looks like the Louvre will play a role in advance Joker: Folie à Deuxthe long-awaited sequel to the 2019 film, jokerfor which Joaquin Phoenix won an Oscar for portraying Batman's nemesis. This time, Lady Gaga plays the Joker's infamous accomplice, Lee Quinzel, aka Harley Quinn. To coincide with the film, which hits theaters on October 4th, the pop star is releasing a concept album based around the film on Friday. A clip from this album's first music video caused a stir this morning as the world watched Lady Gaga put a smile on the Mona Lisa.

The 80-second video begins with Gaga's Harley Quinn looking out at the Louvre. The music is dark and she is dressed as an innocent, disheveled orphan. Next, she walks down the stone steps of the empty, dark museum, marveling at paintings and sculptures of unique men along the way. Then the electric guitar sounds, the lighting changes from cold to warm and Harley Quinn meets the Mona Lisa. Harley Quinn's grin captures her familiarity with the work's lifelike grin. She takes out her lipstick. The video was shot to clearly show that she was doodling on protective glass and not on Leonardo da Vinci's actual painting.

It's not the first time Mona Lisa has received such a makeover. Duchamp famously depicted the character with a mustache, and in 2016, singer Nicole Scherzinger's face was placed over her face in the video for Will.i.am's “Mona Lisa Smile,” also set at the Louvre. Still, some have questioned whether Gaga's new video encourages vandalism amid ongoing demonstrations.

However, the Louvre is looking at Harley Quinn and Mona Lisa a heavenly connection. In a press release, the French institution noted that Harley Quinn's boyfriend, the Joker, and the Mona Lisa are both known for their smiles. They also have etymological roots. The portrait famously immortalizes the wife of the Florentine gentleman Francesco del Giocondo, whose name means “happy” in Italian and refers to the Latin word “Jocus,” or joke, which underpins “Joker.”

Furthermore, unhinged figures abound throughout art. Some would even say that it is characters like this that drive it. Gaga's latest video comes less than a month before the unveiling of the Louvre's “coincidental” upcoming exhibition “Figures of the Fool” in the newly renovated Hall Napoléon. The exhibition examines how archetypal fools reappeared in art from the Middle Ages to the Renaissance and analyzes their visual and social utility. The show will also find presence in absence, tracing the disappearance of the Fool after the Enlightenment begins.

Portrait of a madman looking through his fingers (1537). ©Anvers, The Phoebus Foundation. Courtesy of the Louvre.

“The Fool occupied every available artistic space, immersing himself in illuminated manuscripts, printed books and engravings, tapestries, paintings, sculptures, and all manner of precious and everyday objects,” the museum explained. “His fascinating, confusing and subversive figure emerged from the turmoil of a time not so different from ours.”

“Are today’s fools yesterday’s fools?” The show will ask.

Take it from Joker: Folie a Deux– the fool has certainly returned.

“Figures of the Fool” is on view at the Louvre, Paris, France from October 16, 2024 to February 3, 2025