Standing in front of the large loom in the narrow building of the Manufacture des Gobelins in Paris, crowded with public figures and journalists, Marjane Satrapi, scissors in hand, had the honor, on Tuesday, March 12, of cutting the warp threads holding the work to the wooden frame, unveiling of the central part of the 2024 Paris Olympics tapestry.
The monumental work measures 9.5 by 3.4 meters. It was woven from wool yarn (weighing a total of 60 kilos!) based on the sketch created by the French-Iranian artist at the request of the Organizing Committee for the Olympic and Paralympic Games. "We were looking for an artist with a highly visual style of expression, who also conveys in her thinking, her discourse, the values of universalism on the one hand, and French values on the other," said Hervé Lemoine, the director of the Mobilier National, the prestigious public body that includes workshops and handles France's national furniture collections.
The tapestry features two stylized silhouettes, one female and one male, facing each other in an athletic movement, a flame rising above their hands, against a background reminiscent of the Parisian cityscape. Two other panels woven at the Manufacture de Beauvais will complete the work, one featuring a javelin thrower, the other a skateboarder and a breakdancer.
"Since I couldn't use the image of the Olympic rings – far too expensive – I used the shades," said the artist, who was moved to discover the work carried out over three years by the Manufacture's weavers, present at her side. "Usually, it's me who finishes the work with my pencils, but this time it's them who did it. I have a lot of respect for this artisanal work," added the creator of the Persepolis (2000) comic strip.
The first piece of art to be unveiled among the 2,112 projects approved to date as part of the Cultural Olympiad, the tapestry will be deployed on June 21 on the façade of the Hôtel de la Marine on Place de la Concorde in Paris, where the skateboarding and breakdancing events, new sports at the 2024 Olympics, will be held.