Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa is said to be five hundred years old this year. Art-historically minded party-poopers point out that this is an artificial anniversary, given that no one knows exactly when Leonardo finished his famous picture (or even if he ever considered it to be finished), but why let a beetle-browed caveat like that spoil a jolly good cinquecentenary? Having been officially declared, her “birthday” is being celebrated with special events at the Louvre, a TV documentary about her on BBC1 fronted by Alan Yentob and – on a more surreal note – a series of new Mona Lisa-inspired works by the Parisian artist and photographer Jean-Pierre Khazem. This is one of them. Meet Mona as a Page 3 Girl.

 

The picture is one of several photographic variations by Khazem on the theme of Leonardo’s most famous portrait which have been assembled for a new exhibition at the Jeffrey Deitch Gallery in New York. The nude model in the Mona Lisa mask will also be present herself daily for two hours each evening, when she will strike various sculptural attitudes, as part of a performance which Khazem likens to the so-called “Living Sculptures” of the young Gilbert & George. The performance can only last for two hours, apparently, because the latex Mona Lisa mask which she will be required to wear restricts breathing.

 

Khazem, who lives and works in a studio in St Germain-des-Pres, close to the Louvre, says he was drawn to the image of the Mona Lisa precisely because it has become so ubiquitous and familiar from posters, postcards and reproductions. “It is a face like no face, mysterious but almost anonymous”, he says, in his chirpy, Antoine de Caunes-like accent. “I like to work with models in masks because when you can’t...

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