August 05, 2021 

Courtesy of the French Embassy in Rome  

Palazzo Farnese, a Renaissance jewel in the heart of Rome and home to the embassy of France, is currently being transformed by the celebrated French street artist JR.

The French artist JR opened the façade of the Palazzo Farnese with an installation called ‘Punto di Fuga’ or ‘Vanishing Point’. The art offered a fantasy form behind the walls of one of the most important High Renaissance palaces in Rome.

The piece gives passers-by a peep into the palace while it undergoes renovation, offering glimpses of the classic colonnade and vestibule within, designed by the Renaissance architect Antonio da Sangallo.

With images printed on aluminum, JR “exposes” what's hidden behind the building's massive façade.

Viewers can also take in Antonio Sangallo's vestibule and the 16th-century frescoes by Francesco Salviati on the upper levels. These all lead into deep, receding crevices that give an incredible sense of depth and space. JR's illusion works perfectly with the architecture, harkening back to 17th- and 18th-century etchings of Rome that would have been used as souvenirs during the Grand Tour. 

Courtesy of the artist JR 

To date, the French embassy has been granted use, which has its headquarters here together with the École française, and it is precisely from the French government that the investment of 5.6 million euros is born to complete those restoration interventions that they will cover the exterior of the building. Between the aisles, the barrel vaults, the columns there is an imposing reproduction of the Hercules which is Farnese still in name but no longer in fact, since it is currently housed in the rooms of the National Archaeological Museum of Naples together with other works from the collection. That “the walls of the whole world” are the largest art gallery at his disposal, JR has proved it once again. 

The work—composed of debond (printed aluminum) panels fixed to scaffolding and vinyl tarpaulins on palisades—is a perfect example of a visual game that constructs and reconstructs an image according to the viewer’s position. For the Farnese palace, as for his previous architectural projects, JR invites the visitor to play with the image he created/dismantle and to find the exact point of the anamorphosis, located on the threshold of Piazza Farnese, dei in the middle Ballari.