Mona Lisa, Louvre, Paris, 5.8.2021

How many people have really seen the Mona Lisa, how many people really follow the details and who is really interested in everything around when only likes are important?

I come to a room full of people, full of paintings, but one person is the most important of all, and that is the famous Mona Lisa. An image that forces thousands of people through a huge museum every day, which doesn’t really interest most people. A room full of perhaps more interesting paintings thus becomes a kind of backdrop to the hypocrite theater that takes place in it.
Hundreds of people huddled in a small corridor heading for a single destination. Take a picture of that famous painting and yourself with it. After entering the corridor, many people do not even look away from the mobile screen and document every meter shift to their fate. Chosen! People who can see Mona are chosen! And you ordinary poser who hasn’t been to Paris before envy?

I looked at a lot of people and I found out that maybe a large number of them, maybe 90% of people, really don’t see the picture outside of their mobile phones. Scary, sad but the most interesting picture of the whole room.

I decided to act.

I enter the corridor, I block lightly, I stop at other paintings, people behind me start to get nervous, some overtake, swear. Things are about to escalate.

It’s here I stand in front of her.

5 – 10 – 15 minutes pass like an eternity. I examine every detail. I go back to the moments when I studied these things on art history classes. Genius loci engulfs me.

Reality alarm clock.
„Take a picture and go!“
„What are you doing there!“
„Why do these people come here when they don’t want to take a picture“
„GO“

The people behind me are trying in vain to break in front of me. Pushing and swearing begin.
„You Motherfucker take a picture of it and get out!“
„Well, I’ll take a picture next to him. It’s going to be an angle, asshole.“
„You act like there’s only one painting.“

„WAIT“ I shout at the crowd, take a picture and leave.

„Hey moron, you can’t see it there!“
„He’s kidding, you can’t see Mona Lisa there!“
„That’s a jerk, why did he come here when he doesn’t even want to take a picture“