{"id":460446,"date":"2026-05-21T18:09:11","date_gmt":"2026-05-21T18:09:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/460446\/"},"modified":"2026-05-21T18:09:11","modified_gmt":"2026-05-21T18:09:11","slug":"pont-neuf-pariss-oldest-bridge-transformed-into-cave-by-french-banksy-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/460446\/","title":{"rendered":"Pont Neuf, Paris\u2019s oldest bridge, transformed into cave by \u2018French Banksy\u2019 \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

The oldest bridge in Paris<\/a> has begun to vanish as the artist JR \u2013 who is known as the \u201cFrench Banksy\u201d \u2013 began inflating a giant \u201ccave\u201d over the Pont Neuf.<\/p>\n

The monumental, rocky illusion is swallowing the 17th-century landmark, which has carried Parisians across the Seine for more than 400 years.<\/p>\n

By Thursday, it looked as if a prehistoric cliff had risen in the heart of the city.<\/p>\n

The inflation process, which was carried out overnight \u2013 after being delayed by bad weather \u2013 is the most dramatic stage yet of a project more than a year in the making.<\/p>\n

One of the most ambitious public artworks Paris has seen in decades, which has been funded by the sale of JR\u2019s work and a handful of corporate partners, does not open to the public until June 6th.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re about to leave something pretty incredible in the middle of Paris,\u201d JR told the Associated Press earlier this year at his studio in the city, wearing his trademark hat and shades.<\/p>\n

From the outside, the installation looks like a rocky mass that \u201cliterally\u201d breaks the landscape, said JR, who is famous for pasting enormous photographs on buildings, walls and rooftops around the world. This time he wanted Parisians to do something unusual on their busiest bridge: stop.<\/p>\n

Visitors will be able to walk for free through a long, dark tunnel that lets in no daylight and where, according to JR, people \u201cwill lose track of time\u201d.<\/p>\n

\"TheThe inflation process is the project’s most dramatic stage yet. Photograph: Thomas Padilla\/AP <\/p>\n

The numbers are startling. The structure is 120 metres long and 18 metres tall, which is as high as a six-storey building.<\/p>\n

Yet it is built almost entirely from air \u2013 80 fabric arches filled with 20,000 cubic metres of it. The fabric was hand-stitched by 25 artisans in a village in Brittany.<\/p>\n

Nothing digs into the historic stone. Cut the air and the cliff would sink like a held breath \u2013 a collapse JR\u2019s engineers spent weeks rehearsing in a hangar at Orly airport to be sure that if the power ever failed, the rock would come down gently. <\/p>\n

The artwork, called La Caverne du Pont Neuf, is a tribute to a Parisian artistic giant.<\/p>\n

In 1985, artist Christo and his wife, Jeanne-Claude, wrapped the same bridge in pale golden fabric \u2013 13km of rope, attracting three million visitors in two weeks. The act helped invent the idea of monumental art in modern cities.<\/p>\n

A square beside the bridge now carries their names.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s pretty hard to go after them,\u201d JR said.<\/p>\n

\"AA worker monitors the inflation of the artwork. Photograph: Thomas Padilla\/AP <\/p>\n

His idea, he said, is to bring \u201cmineral and nature\u201d back to the heart of the city. He is not covering the bridge but undressing it, sending the dressed stone back to the limestone quarries from which Paris itself was cut.<\/p>\n

The cave is also a warning. JR built it as a nod to Plato\u2019s allegory, in which prisoners mistake shadows on a wall for the real world.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat are our caves today? Our phones,\u201d he said. \u201cBecause we believe that our algorithm on social media is the reality.\u201d<\/p>\n

Then he walks straight into the contradiction: to enter his cave about screens, visitors raise their phones.<\/p>\n

The tech company Snap has built an augmented-reality layer that shows what the eye cannot.<\/p>\n

\"FrenchFrench street artist JR’s work tackles social media. Photograph: Thomas Padilla\/AP <\/p>\n

The sound is a low, mineral hum from Thomas Bangalter, formerly of Daft Punk, who was 10 years old the year Christo wrapped the bridge.<\/p>\n

The cave will be open around the clock from June 6-28th, closing the bridge to traffic and visible from the quays, from passing boats, even from the top of the Eiffel Tower.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Divergent Lines review: In this rich, stimulating group show, drawing extends far beyond the pageOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

It will coincide with Paris Fashion Week, World Music Day and the all-night Nuit Blanche arts festival.<\/p>\n

When it comes down, the fabric will be reused or recycled. Air, JR likes to say, leaves no scar.<\/p>\n

Then, like the golden wrapping 40 years before, the cave will be gone \u2013 and the Pont Neuf, older than the republic and older than the revolution, will reappear exactly as it was. \u2013 AP<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The oldest bridge in Paris has begun to vanish as the artist JR \u2013 who is known as…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":460447,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[9538,93,1814,61,60,1838],"class_list":["post-460446","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-banksy","tag-entertainment","tag-france","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-paris"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/460446","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=460446"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/460446\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/460447"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=460446"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=460446"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=460446"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}