Darth Vader has made a new set of enemies after being included in an exhibition to attract children — and uncultivated adults — to the Louvre.
Traditionalists are furious at the suggestion that the villain from Star Wars is on a par with classical heroes and say that curaters have risked turning the Louvre into “an ersatz museum”.
Founding Myths, from Hercules to Darth Vader is the title of the exhibition in la Petite Galerie, a new space opening today to bring the world’s most popular museum to people who would otherwise find it intimidating.
The gallery is small — 250 sq m — and its exhibitions will aim to interest children aged 7 to 12 as well as older people who “feel illegitimate in places of culture”, according to Fleur Pellerin, the culture minister.
The exhibition features 70 objects including a 3rd century BC Italian sculpture of a tired Hercules after his labours and a 12th century French stone capital portraying Samson killing the lion.
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The Darth Vader mask from the first Star Wars film is also there, with a clip from the movie. Curators say the fallen Jedi master has become a mythical figure to rank alongside ancient Greek heroes. For Didier Rykner, editor of the website La Tribune de l’Art, Hercules was an authentic hero and a founding myth. Darth Vader, he said, was neither.
“Darth Vader is certainly a myth, [but] he is in no way, or at least not yet, a founding myth,” he said. “Darth Vader is not a hero, but an anti-hero.”