Artist Baptiste Debombourg Makes a Magnificent Metal Mural With Half a Million Staples

Artist extraordinaire <a href="http://www.baptistedebombourg.com/en/biography">Baptiste Debombourg</a> put 340 painstaking hours into his third <em>Aggravure</em> staple art installation, which uses nearly half a million staples. Inspired by the Renaissance engravers Hendrick Goltzius, Jan Harmensz, and Cherubino Alberti, Debombourg tacked the staples onto a wall in a way that "worsens the scale" of the original 16th century artworks, which, in the artist's view, have aggressive tendencies. We've seen <a href="http://inhabitat.com/nyc/artist-stacks-hundreds-of-staples-to-create-spectacular-model-of-new-york-city/nyc-staples-8/">incredible staple art</a> before, but Dembombourg has transformed these tiny ordinary objects into metal murals that even Renaissance artists would be proud of!

Aggravure III is a mural made of hundreds of thousands of staples.

Baptiste Debombourg spent 340 hours on this installation.

This is the third in a series by the artist.

Debombourg used nearly 1/2 a million staples to complete this project.

An ordinary object is turned into extraordinary pieces of art.

Placed in an industrial context, the pieces are even more powerful.

Debombourg takes Icarus, Renaissance mannerism, and Air Force One as his points of reference - all particularly aggressive in his view.

The metal murals are inspired by various 16th century engravers.

The detail is amazing!

The murals are best seen from afar.

Up close, it's hard to distinguish the forms, although getting a close up look at how many staples were tacked to the wall gives a different sense of perspective.

We've seen cool staple art installations, but this is the mother of them all!