JR and Timothée Chalamet tear through American flag at Met Gala 2021

At the 2021 Met Gala, co-president Timothée Chalamet and French artist JR staged a performance inside the Marcel Breuer–designed building that once housed the Whitney Museum, later the Met, and now the Frick Collection. Before walking the red carpet, the duo entered the venue where Chalamet, dressed in white, sat contemplating paintings on a floor covered with a JR work that altered depth perception. He then walked toward a wall featuring a fake star-spangled corridor—another JR piece—and tore through it to move through other rooms, encountering more paper images before meeting JR outside. They walked together to the gala. The performance was filmed and posted on Instagram, the event's social partner. JR stated, 'We enter an American flag to find a place, an identity, a position, a future, between the stripes and stars. To reach the end, we must confront our cracks, our faults, those of our nation, our family, and our fissures amplified by two years of solitude, anger, fear, confrontation.'