The Renaissance hipsters: Photographer dresses Louvre sculptures in preppy clothes and Ray-Bans to make 'the icon iconic'

The Renaissance hipsters: Photographer dresses Louvre sculptures in preppy clothes and Ray-Bans to make 'the icon iconic'

 

 

The famous statues of the Louvre have been given a makeover.

French photographer Léo Calliard, 27, from Paris, teamed up with digital imaging retoucher Alexis Persani to dress the Greek Agora masterpieces in clothes more likely to be seen on Shoreditch hipsters.

'I had this idea when I was walking in the Louvre Museum looking at different sculptures,' Calliard tells MailOnline.

'These sculptures represent most of the time Gods or important people very far from our every day life. To make them "iconic", their sculptor made them naked, without any element from a specific period of time.

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Le Faune Barberini suns himself and relaxes in the nude in the original version of the statue

'I realised that it would make a great series of pictures if I could dress these statues up. Of course, it was impossible to do it in real life as the museum wouldn't let me touch the statues.'

'I started to think about the way to do it and I finally found the right process. I made a casting of models to find people with the same body shape as the statues. Then, I did a photoshoot in a studio with these models dressed in hipster clothing.

'The important part of the shooting was to recreate the same light on the models and to ask them to pose in the same was as the statue they were representing. After that, it was possible to mix both pictures in post-production, using Photoshop to take the clothes from the studio shoot and put them on the pictures of the statues that I shot in the museum.'

A fine Greek Agora statue is kitted out in rolled up hems and rolled up sleeves for the Shoreditch effect

The original Aristaeus by Joseph Bosio is a nude sculpture

In line with his childhood fascination with Einstein’s relativity research and study of environments and imagines with the idea that reality 'might not be as we see it', Calliard changes the way we perceive these classic figures.

Le Faune Barberini by Edmé Bouchardon leans back wearing green rolled up trousers, a bomber jacket and neon shades while Michel de Montaigne by Jean-Baptist Stouf looks dapper in a blue plaid shirt and Ray-Ban sunglasses.

 

Aristaeus, God of the gardens by Artist François Joseph Bosio leans on a rock while appearing to wear a tight blue shirt with rolled up sleeves, rolled up trousers and trendy shades as Meleagre by Louis Simon Boizot is kitted out in rolled up orange shorts and a denim shirt.

The work forces the viewer to question what is real and what could be real.

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Writing of his project, Callard says: 'Who is to say that the figures presented in the stone of Greek Agora were not the greatest representation of the human form known at that time?

'The statues, with their clothes stripped away reveal a magnificence of shape & balance. But what were the Greeks wearing when they weren't posing for sculptors..? 

'Appearance, in all its many nuances, present the character. 'Clothes maketh the man' as William Shakespeare wrote in Hamlet.

'One’s dress sense indicates one's priorities, choices, and lifestyle. Are you 'in' or are you 'out'? 

'Hipster or Classic? Which tribe are you a member of? Which tribe were the men posing for these statues from?'

Hipsters In Stone presents a twist on themes taking the ultimate from the Classic world and adding a modern, contemporary twist with cropped trousers, Ray-Bans and plaid shirts - 'making the icons iconic'.

The throwaway cotton skater dress is a hipster girl's wardrobe staple. This classic statue works the look

Leo 'takes the ultimate from the Classic world and adds a modern, contemporary twist'

Meleagre by Louis Simon looks a lot less hipster and more cherub-like in real life