Beyoncé Kindly Cast Some of Her Glow Upon the Louvre 

“The 10.2 million people who came to the museum in 2018 marked a 25% rise in visitors, beating the previous record of 9.7 million visitors in 2012,” the Guardian reported. And yes, museum director Jean-Luc Martinez explicitly cited the “Apeshit” video. “It’s clear that 2018 was a remarkable year for the international reputation of the Louvre,” he told a French radio outlet, adding that: “The Beyoncé video, like the opening of the Louvre museum in Abu Dhabi, ensured that the Louvre was talked about across the world, and one of the consequences of that is the spectacular rise in visitor numbers last year.”

The video offered some new ins for the museum, the Guardian noted:

The video, viewed more than 150m times online, was seen as an important comment on the representation of power in art, and on race and colonialism, as well as being a conversation starter for young visitors. It led the museum to create a special visitor guide based on the video, which was a success and gave the permanent collection what one museum worker called the feeling of a “cool brand”.

However, let’s spare a moment to appreciate the contribution of a major retrospective for the work of Eugène Delacroix, who painted “Liberty Leading the People” and whose shockingly hot face is now emblazoned across the side of the Met Museum of Art here in New York, the current home of the exhibit. Who knew?