And with a generous grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (love on, you crazy kids!)…

And in conjunction with our proud partners:

The Rothschild Group
The Dr Pepper Snapple Group
Miramax
Ruth’s Chris Steak House
Coldwell Banker
The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of San Juan de Puerto Rico
BarkBox
Open Society Foundations
The Cal & Edina Bourniquet Consortium
Jemima Kirke’s ArtSlut!! Soullective
The Bilderberg Group
Deepwater Horizon (in theaters September 30)
The library
The Priory of Sion

… a fully interactive and thunderously intellectual virtual guide to Paris, France’s Louvre Museum: crown prince of where art is!

The human mind of today is soft and underdeveloped, like a cave dolphin. Thanks to sagging moral fiber, Vietnam’s war, and heavy metals, the pure aesthetic titillations that used to get people aroused in their art-brains and riled for sculpture now holds no interest for the lay dullard. Show someone a fine Dutch nude today, and they will probably say, “Can I have fries with that?” or at best, “Who made that, the Kardashians?”

Yes.

Using artistic technology and one book, the entire Louvre collection is now available to tour, complete with blurbs, bits, tidbits, nubs, and the information known only as “facts.” But—and get this—digital is how.

Yeah, welcome to the 21st century… hope you survive to adulthood!!

What do you want?

Yes.

Art is an excretion produced by dysfunctional bodies. In the healthy body, the impurities that end up as art would normally be expelled with urine and feces, but a dysfunctional body can’t process them. Instead, it sends them up to poison the brain so the ruined body can die.

The brain, in turn, encases these fatal chunks in brain’s silk and regurgitates them in the form of appealing disasters called art. Think of an oyster creating a pearl, only fundamentally worthless.

Art can take on pretty much any form except LEGO.

Now what?

Yes.

A museum is a palace where a horrifying coup took place at some point. Countesses dragged by their hair into banquet halls and strangled with their own gold chains, royal children butchered in their beds, dukes and cardinals forced to gouge each others’ eyes out and choke on them, and so on. This process is called history.

Once the building’s scrubbed clean of gunk and offal, art is jammed in there to prevent future bloodbaths. Would-be insurgents are bombarded with disorienting blasts of visual bliss, and royals live elsewhere, because who wants to live in a museum?

Now what?

Yes.

Paris, France, is a hell of a town made famous by Mr. Hemingway himself, Ernest Hemingway, whose well-chronicled dying words of “Paris, France… it’s a hell of a town!” forever catapulted it into the public imagination as the place where the Louvre is. Paris, France, boasts hundreds of miles of alleyways for tourists to take naps in, and its official motto is “If not here, then scram.”

Now what?

Yes.

First, please meet your virtual escorts, Gus and Gert. They are volunteers who owe money to the museum. They are here to ensure you have a fun time with the art and don’t create any situations on your tour! Please do not create any situations on your tour.

Welcome to the Louvre, where the world comes together to know that there’s art. If you were actually here, all around you would be the screams of children, the screams of their parents, the screams of young couples, the screams of virtual escorts, and generalized screaming of no origin. Instead, there is only the damp sound of your labored breathing.

From this lobby, wings stretch off in every direction, each containing at least one thing a boyfriend could berate you into believing is art. Your journey from mush-minded know-about-nothing to full-blown illuminati begins… now! And we’re here to help, every plodding step of the way.

Where to?

You’re back at the central hub.

Where to?

Oh boy.

This gallery has all the bad art that we’ve ended up stuck with over the centuries. It’s kept away from the good art so that no one mistakes a piece of bad art for good art or vice versa. How mortifying would it be to exclaim “What a good piece of art this is!” only to have your husband or Louvre-appointed husband surrogate politely point out that it is, in fact, bad art? Those are the exact sorts of situations we hope to annihilate by exposing the public to mostly good art, but as they say, you can’t make an omelet without the noble egg.

This is Botched Still Life with David (1911 A.D.).

Henri Matisse never intended Botched Still Life with David to be botched or include David. During a transitional phase of his style and artistic philosophies, Matisse (a notorious perfectionist) became so dissatisfied with his attempts to paint this basket of produce that he gave up entirely, instead handing it to his assistant David to hold indefinitely.

Nobody here at the Louvre much likes David. He has no sense of tact, he is constantly smacking his lips, and he smells like the cabinet under the sink. He used to have a shirt, but God knows what happened to it. This is the first and last Matisse the Louvre has and will ever acquire, because if you really think we’re going to display anything else by the guy who stuck us with David, you better check yourself into continuing education, mon ami.

These are Marc Chagall’s Mike And Ikes (1955 A.D.).

On a visit to the Louvre in fall of 1955, modernist luminary Marc Chagall took a fistful of Mike And Ikes out of his pocket and dropped them on the gallery floor. It’s unclear to this day if the action was accidental, but it kicked off an argument between Chagall and his wife, Vava Brodsky, with Chagall insisting the Mike And Ikes were the museum’s responsibility now, and Brodsky asking him to please quit being difficult and just pick them up.

When eventually Brodsky shouted at him to pick up the damn Mike And Ikes, Chagall was heard to exclaim, “You would have me destroy my own installation?!” cleverly forcing nearby Louvre arbitrators to decide whether or not the scattered Mike And Ikes were now part of the museum collection. In a hotly contested 50-48 decision, it was determined that yes, Marc Chagall’s Mike And Ikes were part of the collection, though all involved acknowledged that the whole situation was pretty shitty and the art in question wasn’t even all that good.

In 1988 a clumsy visitor stepped on a few of the Mike And Ikes. They are still in prison.

We don’t actually know what this one is called (???? A.D.).

Nobody remembers acquiring this. Nobody remembers hanging this. It is in none of our records, electronic or paper. We know nothing at all about it. It just is, and it is awful.

Ugh! Shit! Look at it! He’s just scooping up fingerfuls of limp, soggy noodles and looking right at you as he lowers them into his bucktoothed craw! His face looks like it’s sloughing off, like he’s wearing his dad’s face over his own face! He’s not even aiming for his mouth right—he’s going to drizzle his cream-cheese-frosting cheek with loosely gripped Barilla!

What kind of sick soul would paint a pervert? Who would do this to the Louvre? What have we done to deserve this? His vacant eyes hold no answers. Only madness lies behind them.

We are deeply sorry to inform you that due to cuts in public arts funding, the virtual Louvre’s Arm Wrestling Simulator has been scuttled.

Unfortunately, between digitizing the likenesses and fighting styles of the world‘s top-ranked arm wrestlers, porting the Arm Wrestling Simulator to the Oculus Rift and other leading VR platforms, and perfecting the Louvre’s state-of-the-art U-Feel-It force feedback system, costs were simply too great to deliver the ultimate virtual arm wrestling experience we believe our museum guests deserve.

While we appreciate the numerous crowdfunding campaigns that have sprung up to support the rebirth of this project, we cannot accept outside donations. Instead, we ask that any money raised be put toward the purchase of a grizzly bear, as we’ve always thought it would be cool as hell if there were a grizzly bear just roaming around in the Louvre. Thank you.

This is the Louvre Pyramid (1989 A.D.).

Commissioned by French president Donnie “Dem Bones” MacDougal, the iconic glass-and-etc. Pyramid was erected to commemorate the 200th anniversary of there not being a pyramid in front of the Louvre. Upon its unveiling, the Pyramid sparked a firestorm of controversy, with some Parisians insisting it violated the spirit of the anniversary it was meant to mark, while others sat quietly and waited for those Parisians to stop fucking talking for once.

Not only is the Pyramid a triumph of architectural design, but it’s rich with symbolism, too. The 700 panes of glass represent the 700 pieces of art the Louvre had to give to the homeless guy living on the Pyramid’s proposed construction site before he’d agree to pack up his tent and move. The Pyramid is 68 feet tall, in memory of the 68 French legionnaires crushed by the Pyramid when it was prematurely tipped into place. And its four sides represent the four sacred values of the French revolution: liberty, equality, fraternity, and one pyramid eventually.

Whoa.

Okay.

You just got to the Louvre, cradle of western art, and you’re going to barrel straight toward the one painting you’ve heard of, like a pig to the trough.

Boy, wow, it’s not like teams of experts put in thousands of man-hours to painstakingly curate the greatest art experience the Northern Hemisphere has to offer, because if they did, what a thunderous “fuck you” it would be to blow all that off just to gawk with glazed eyes at some beige, eyebrow-less androgyne. Oh, wait, the truth of the situation is in fact the opposite of that!!

So yeah, go right ahead to your favorite painting in the whole world. We can’t stop you.

Of course. How could you leave the Louvre without a glimpse of da Vinci’s world-famous Mona Lisa? It is the pearl in our box with one pearl in it. The Ferrero Rocher in our wedding rehearsal gift bags. The dollop of caviar in the palm of a prince. Italia’s favorite son. The CEO of museum.

Right this way. She’s waiting.

Take it all in. Nothing we say can add to the breathtaking awe that rolls off this painting like spring water off the wings of an excellent goose. Everything you could ever want to learn about the Mona Lisa is right in front of you.

Look her over from every angle, or get up close for a better look. This is, without a doubt, the ultimate Mona Lisa experience.

Incredible.

Thank you for gazing at the Mona Lisa!

Our virtual Louvre bonanza is constantly improving, adapting, and mutating based on your feedback. Please tell your virtual escorts how you feel now that you’ve looked over the Princess Diana of art.

Thank you! Any way you feel is a valid way to feel, and anyone who tells you otherwise might be smarter than us, so listen to them instead.

Stunning.

Spectacular.

A vision in pigment.

Fuck! It just doesn’t get any better than this!

Yeah, now we’re talking.

Words fail.

Captivating.

Truly, a masterpiece.

Peerless.

Unfortunately, not everything in the Louvre collection was gotten through the standard method of trading art for favors (typically coupons for dunks in subterranean Louvre pleasure cenotes, or a leg of fine jamón ibérico), and then interring the artist in the Artists’ Pen. In fact, some of the art was shoved into the museum by none other than Europe’s famous Nazis.

During the Nazi occupation of Paris, France, hundreds of years ago, an elite force of Nazi museum curators took it upon themselves to tell us how to do our fucking jobs. They ravaged high and low, this way and that, pillaging up anything that jazzed their black little hearts. Although most of the stolen art was eventually claimed from the big pile of stolen art we had out front for a while, the pieces here remain orphaned, much like Europe’s famous orphans. As such, little is known about them.

Don’t worry, though: Everything in this collection has been carefully exorcised by Louvre shamans and will no longer taint your soul or toxify your kidneys.

This is Granite Cube (???? A.D.).

It is an excellent example of a cube. Close your eyes and imagine a cube made of granite. Now open your eyes, and it’s like you never opened your eyes at all. Your eyes could still be closed, imagining a granite cube, and it would be this one. Nobody even had to make this cube for you to see it, but someone did, and now you get to.

This stolen piece was displayed in a place of great prominence in Hitler’s personal office in the Reichstag, and it was assigned four handlers who were instructed to put the cube in Hitler’s chair whenever the Nazi leader was out of the building.

This is Cube with Smaller, Different Cubes (???? A.D.).

What can be said about these cubes that does not immediately assail the senses? It’s clear why the Nazis were desperate to have them. Differently colored, differently sized, yet identically proportioned, there’s no doubt about it: These are four cubes. Much as it pains us to say so, when it comes to these cubes, Europe’s loss is the Louvre’s gain.

This is Tall Cube (???? A.D.).

Truth be told, we’re not so fond of this one. Something’s just off about it. Maybe it’s that it was stolen by Nazis, most likely through horrific violence, or maybe it’s just a matter of preference, but we tend to skip over it.

If you love it, that’s great! We’re not here to convince you that you don’t, or make you feel bad about your tastes. We hate it when people and virtual museum simulators do that, as though you can logically prove to someone that they felt the wrong way about something.

Anyway, we’re not here to pontificate, either. We just don’t really like this particular bit of Nazi-collected art, is all.

To each their own!

This is Cube Made of Cubes (???? A.D.).

Now this is what we’re talking about! Say what you will about the Nazis, but they knew how to fucking pick ’em! You could just as soon show this to a toddler as to one of the most powerful minds on philosophy and aesthetics Teddy Adorno, and they’d both completely lose their shit over it. When the horn of Ash-Fall sounds and the Louvre crumbles into bone-white sand, as foretold by the three Louvre seers in their forbidden grotto, this cube better stick around, or art as we know it is dead. Quote us on that.

Thank you for browsing the Nazi Acquisitions!

Our virtual Louvre bonanza is constantly improving, adapting, and mutating based on your feedback. Please tell your virtual escorts if viewing this gallery left you with a better, a worse, or the same opinion about Nazis.

It’s exactly that kind of neutrality that allowed the Nazis to come to power in the first place.

“All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.” —Edmund Burke

Try again.

Fantastic! It’s always kind of hit-or-miss with that gallery, so this is great to hear. Enjoy the art!

This is The One Painting They Let You Do Stuff To (1516 A.D.).

The painting was graciously donated by an anonymous collector who believed wholeheartedly in the Louvre’s mission to expose the public to art, and vice versa. To that end, the donor set two stipulations: that the Louvre allow visitors to do whatever fucked up actions and verbs they want to the painting, and that the security footage of the painting be regularly delivered to a safe deposit box.

Every night, the painting is restored by a team of Louvre decontaminators and Louvre ungunkers, and every day, it’s absolute Gomorrah in here.

Our virtual Louvre has been preloaded with the most common actions, shouted abuse, and acts of shocking tenderness that visitors do to the painting.

We ask only that you don’t try to analyze the One Painting They Let You Do Stuff To; it creates a feedback loop that is extremely painful to the virtual escorts.

Do-stuff away!

You’ve sweated all over the painting, and now it smells like blowdried Hamburger Helper, just like you.

What now?

The painting feels like a dry, glossy kiss against your thrust ass, just like you always imagined it would.

What now?

The painting does not yield to your disdain.

What now?

Once again, your trusty blade doesn’t let you down. Hell of a gouge!

What now?

Ooh. Yes. That’s good. That’s exactly what he needs. That’s the pleasure he craves.

What now?

Haha, dang! Gross! Get that checked out, dude!

What now?

Wow! Nice.

What now?

Great! Hope she enjoys this Renaissance masterpiece. Give your cautious daughter our best from all of us here at the Louvre, where caution is part of the art!

Okay, we asked you specifically not to try interpreting the painting! The virtual escorts need to stay separate from the art to keep their minds intact, and you’re jamming them right into it. You might as well be feeding them into an industrial blender!

Now c’mon, what do you want to do?

Before viewing the three gorgeous nudes of Nudes, Nudes, Nudes!, please allow your virtual escorts to earn their daily ladleful of heart-healthy fish oil by informing you of the terms and conditions:

• Visitors may not download or screenshot the nudes.
• Visitors may not place printer paper on their screen and trace the nudes and mail the tracing to the Louvre demanding it be displayed there.
• Visitors may not press their hand against the nudes on their screen and whisper “forbidden beauty… ” or “the erotic pearl of Cosimo de’ Medici… ”
• Visitors are strongly encouraged not to look the nudes in the eye.
• Visitors are strongly encouraged not to meditate on more than one nipple at a time.

Unfortunately, our virtual escorts can only enforce these terms and conditions through the weak and pathetic honor system. Sound good?

Are you sure? These are some pretty spectacular nudes. They wouldn’t be in the Louvre if they weren’t. They were hand-selected by Louvre nude jockeys and hand-buffed by paid Louvre nude-jockey interns. Won’t you reconsider?

Thank you! Your virtual escorts will get their fish oil.

This first sumptuous nude is the Feminine Mystery (1814 A.D.).

For centuries, her gaze has driven viewers and critics alike into frenzies of hot-blooded aesthetic rowdiness with the promise of unknowable womanly nuggets, mined by dainty hands from the hidden creeks and ancient matriarchal valleys of untold fertility, lit by the gentle silver caresses of Moon the Girl Planet.

The Feminine Mystery depicts a woman who is also a symbol… or is she a symbol that is also a woman? We cannot know. Only her erotically inscrutable erotic inscrutability is scrutable. Stare at her as long as you like, but you will never reveal her Female Truth.

Well, we can’t do anything about that, other than deny your virtual escorts their fish oil. Sorry, guys!

This first sumptuous nude is the Feminine Mystery (1814 A.D.).

For centuries, her gaze has driven viewers and critics alike into frenzies of hot-blooded aesthetic rowdiness with the promise of unknowable womanly nuggets, mined by dainty hands from the hidden creeks and ancient matriarchal valleys of untold fertility, lit by the gentle silver caresses of Moon the Girl Planet.

The Feminine Mystery depicts a woman who is also a symbol… or is she a symbol that is also a woman? We cannot know. Only her erotically inscrutable erotic inscrutability is scrutable. Stare at her as long as you like, but you will never reveal her Female Truth.

We’ll have more nudes for you in just a second. First, though, did you download or screenshot the nude, or make eye contact with it? Please be honest.

Wonderful! Keep on a-nudin’.

This is Michelangelo’s Statue of the Artist as a Filthy Boy (1513 A.D.).

By the time he reached middle age, Michelangelo already sculpted the Pietà and David, painted the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, designed several small grain mills that cats could operate if they were just slightly smarter, and beaten up Leonardo da Vinci enough times to make it stick.

Thus, in his autumn years, he turned his attention inward, creating this marble portrait of himself as a dirty little imp in nothing but a wisp of a crop top, his tight-n-slight dreamsicle body crying out for fingertips to touch, tease, flick, and swat at his taut Tuscan skin. Oh, what a grimy little morsel Michelangelo must have been, drunk on sweat and peninsular musk, flitting through silk-draped salons and fruited gardens, pearly laughter echoing in the loamy dusk rich with the promise of unnameable pleasures. And oh, those honeysuckle Florence nights…

Wow! Very sexual and fun!

Hope you are enjoying the nudes! We do just have to quickly check and make sure you haven’t violated the terms and conditions, maybe by meditating on both of Michelangelo’s nipples simultaneously. But you haven’t, have you?

Just stupendous.

The final nude is none other than yours truly, Me (1956 A.D.).

I am part of the Louvre’s collection, and I am speaking everything you read into my beloved microphone for unpaid Louvre general-purpose interns to transcribe and translate. My official title is Voz del Louvre but unofficially I am known around here as the one piece of art capable of speech and having nightmares.

I was acquired by the Louvre in an initiative to revitalize interest in the arts and humanities by getting a guy in there. While I failed to significantly increase ticket sales, Louvre guy-wardens noticed that knowledge of the museum and its collection was leaching into my brain through the nest of stripped wires I slept in. Even though my own memories were quickly and irreversibly crowded out by this new information, I became invaluable to the museum, and was given my beloved microphone to educate the world with!

I am, of course, nude to keep from overheating. They feed me acorn paste.

You’re welcome! And one last time, we good on those terms and conditions? We would hate to find out you traced the contours of my body for purposes of mail.

Here we go now to the Hall of Antiquities, where the wonders of the ancient world are all roommates in a big awful unfurnished studio apartment they can’t move out of because they are statues and objects. It’s a nightmare fate and they deserve it for defying the ravages of time.

This is the Code of Hammurabi (1776 B.C.).

It is the oldest United States constitution in the entire world, predating even the constitution of the United States, erected thousands of years ago by Babylonian imagineer “Doc” Hammurabi. The tablet lays out a strict and precise legal code in scritchy-scratchy squiggle language, which Louvre scientists eventually translated as…

“Fuck up and Doc Hammurabi gets your eyes! Your eyes! Put your eyes in a box and don’t fuck up too bad or here comes Doc Hammurabi with chopsticks and grease to snatch those damn eyes to make an anniversary gift for his damn wife!”

… over and over and over and over.

Fine.

The Code of Hammurabi was discovered by French explorers in 1905 during a backyard soiree, where it was noticed that the host had an enormous carved stone monolith jutting through the planks of their patio, covered in scritchy-scratchies and gunk.

“Hey, is that the Code of Hammurabi?” said one explorer, gesturing.

“Damn, you think?” said the host. “It just jutted up one day. We’ve just been bashing shellfish open against it, and occasionally worshipping it, if the mood strikes.”

“That looks just like the Code of Hammurabi,” said the explorer in a tone implying the host really ought to offer it to him.

“Jesus, take it to your damn museum if you want it,” said the host. “Just actually ask; don’t be a little shit about it.”

In this way, the Code of Hammurabi was added to the Louvre’s collection.

This is the Sexual Torso (100 B.C.).

Among the most famous sculptures ever gouged into existence, the Sexual Torso was carved by somebody who sure knew what they were doing, because yowza ba-bowza.

While precious little is known about the statue, scholarly consensus believes it a tribute to a well-documented pair of loose, gorgeous lady arms that had enchanted and beguiled the ancient Greeks around the same period. The sculpture provided the qualities the arms lacked, rendered in rich, sensual detail, which allowed them to haul themselves up onto the statue and wave around on there as though it were their body.

To the ancient Greeks, this was fine and okay, and that’s why history ground them to dust.

Sure.

The Sexual Torso can’t be destroyed. We are not kidding. Louvre scientists went at this thing with wooden bats, aluminum bats, titanium bats, carbon fiber bats, this big axe one of them just had in a storage unit, and: nada. Before the Sexual Torso was added to the permanent collection, it was first set on fire, shot with two guns simultaneously, drowned, and repeatedly struck by lightning, to no effect. After that, it was added to the permanent collection.

Louvre scientists did this because they hate the potent erotic effect the sculpture has on them. Furious at their powerlessness to resist it, they turn their lust to bitter hatred and acts of violence. But the Sexual Torso… it does not yield.

This is the Only Mummy (300 B.C.).

Commonly misconstrued as a frequent practice of the ancient Egyptians, mummification was only ever performed once, on just the one guy, thus creating the Only Mummy.

And “performed” is kind of a stretch; the embalmers just went to town on the poor chump, with a real jazz attitude about the whole thing: ripping out guts and brains; rubbing him down with whatever filthy grit they could get their mitts on; spraying him with animal glands; rolling him around in a backyard and whooping it up; slapping him against marsh birds and really mangling a few of them; and finally, twisting him up in crude papier-mâché and jamming him in the basement of a dunce’s cathedral.

The result was a truly fucked-up tamale husk of a corpse whose continued existence is an affront to nature.

Christ, you’re insatiable.

The Only Mummy occupies a special place in Egyptian mythology.

The Egyptians believed that, on entering the nether-realm, a soul would be judged by Anubis, God of the Afterlife, for its sins in life.

However, because of the thorough desecration of the Only Mummy’s corpse, it was believed that his soul was immediately dragged by the hair into a hallway, where, one by one, the gods took turns kicking its ass. Osiris, god of rebirth, would wail on it for a while with a bar of soap in a tube sock, and when he got winded, Set, god of chaos, would lace up his cleats and stomp away.

This went on for 500 years, until someone ratted to Amun-Ra, King of Gods, who swooped in, scooped up the thoroughly pummeled soul, and, for having suffered so long, cut it a check for what now amounts to about $30 but back then was a whole lot of dinero. This is the only instance in Egyptian mythology where a god gives someone some cash without then repeatedly hitting them up for favors and rides.

This is the Liberty Bell (1770 A.D.).

Fuck! What the hell? Who put the Liberty Bell in the goddamn Louvre? This is a diplomatic disaster waiting to happen! This is worse than the time that kid crawled onto the Nike of Samothrace and wouldn’t come down so Louvre security consultants had to spray him with the fire extinguisher but some of the foam got into his brain and destroyed the part of it that distinguishes food from water and now all he can eat are smoothies and broths, but get this: He eats them off a plate! Way worse!

Please do not inform the United States government that the Liberty Bell is apparently in the Louvre so that we can resolve this snafu quickly and quietly. If you are a member of the United States government, please contact [email protected] so we can strike ourselves a little quid-pro-quo arrangement.

Uh.

The Liberty Bell is clearly some kind of bell, having the rough shape and reputation of your standard bell. This thing is hefty and warm to the touch, it’s been stolen from the United States of America and jammed in the Louvre, and it’s possible that United States commandos will kick open the windows of the Louvre and gun down the curatorial staff and our barely armed security guards and the many art appreciators we seed the wings with to get visitors in the mood for art, seize the Liberty Bell, and then storm the Louvre nursery and take our hatchlings back to the United States with them to be raised as black ops assassins. Also, there is a crack in it.

This is all we know about the Liberty Bell. Sorry.

Thank you for browsing the Hall of Antiquities!

Our virtual Louvre bonanza is constantly improving, adapting, and mutating based on your feedback. Please tell your virtual escorts how your Hall of Antiquities experience could have been improved.

Your feedback has been considered and rejected.

Thank you. Let’s keep exploring!

Among the greatest treasures of the Louvre is the Artists’ Pen. In this 50-by-50-by-50-foot plexiglass enclosure, every living artist with art in the Louvre is voluntarily sequestered in exchange for having their work exhibited. The Louvre has even managed to acquire a few of the dead artists, and they are somewhere in there, too.

During the day, visitors may engage with the artists through the chit-chat slits, while at night, a soothing mist of nutrients and moisturizers keeps the living artists healthy and lubricated and the dead artists from getting too rancid.

Yes.

Our virtual Louvre has been preloaded with the most common questions, interjections, and trivia that visitors shout through the chit-chat slits. It’s just like if it were life, on here!

Go ahead, interact!

The artists writhe rhythmically, beating against the plexiglass in impressively coordinated pulses. The ones pressed right up against the glass stare blankly, eyes dim and drippy, more meat than living things. A collective moan shudders through the mass, sounding like an underwater slaughterhouse.

Wow! What now?

The mass of artists seems to contract, peeling away from the plexiglass with a soft tearing sound, leaving behind a milky patina. The resulting mound of bodies quivers and whimpers, somehow exuding an acrid gray vapor that kicks off a chorus of rasping coughs and a spray of flailing limbs.

Wow! What now?

Based on 20 years’ worth of Louvre feedback cards, we can say with confidence that it smells like the crook of Roger Federer’s knee if he voided his bladder during an extra-sweaty mid-match panic attack.

Keep interacting!