It was the Feast of Dionysus. Greek God of festivity and feasting and ritual and theater. The Olympics are from Greek culture and tradition. French culture is deeply rooted in feasting and festivity and performing arts."
My wish isn't to be subversive, nor to mock or to shock. Most of all, I wanted to send a message of love, a message of inclusion and not at all to divide."
The interpretation of the Greek God Dionysus makes us aware of the absurdity of violence between human beings."
I just don't think we Christians realize how fragile we make our faith look when we act as though something like artistic expression represents an existential threat to us. We have allowed fear and suspicion to overtake our public witness rather than love and understanding."
The whole blue man as a Greek god thing, in hindsight, is a major tell that this wasn't the last supper."
Certainly we were not glorifying this instrument of death which is the guillotine,
The idea was to do a big pagan party linked to the gods of Olympus,
You'll never find in my work any desire to mock or denigrate anyone. I wanted a ceremony that brings people together, that reconciles, but also a ceremony that affirms our Republican values of liberty, equality and fraternity,
Clearly there was never an intention to show disrespect to any religious group. (The opening ceremony) tried to celebrate community tolerance,
We know in the LGBTQ community in France we are far from what the ceremony showed. There’s much progress to do in society regarding transgender people. It’s terrible that to legally change their identity they are forced to be on trial,
The extraordinary thing is that everyone in France and the rest of the world has an idea of what France is all about. And I want to play with that, that's where I want to start from - breaking down clichés, because clichés come along other things,
Be not deceived, God is not mocked."
Opening the Olympics by insulting billions of Christians around the world was a really bad start, dear French people.”
I'm proud of France for being so bold and unapologetically weird, and it rocks that they had a metal band play at the opening ceremony."
Just can't define the opening ceremony. Hints of genius, madness, beauty, failure, boredom, brilliance, surprise and much more. Maybe it's very Paris and very 2024."
The ceremony was the next level of art. Proud to be French!"
God I'm feeling patriotic, we're just so unapologetically weird."
I'm sticking to my guns, last night's #OpeningCeremony was way better than London 2012, you lads really messed that up, and if I was British I'd feel ashamed and somewhat inferior.... So you know I feel sorry for you guys."
One billion human beings who discover Philippe Katerine in this way, that's my France."
It wasn't the Last Supper, which is housed in Italy, not France. it was the Feast of Dionysis.