JR
JR
b. 1983
The French artist JR is known for his huge portraits of anonymous people which involve local communities and urban spaces across the world. Encouraging pedestrians to engage with cities’ walls and facades, JR’s art creates new interactions and conversations, promoting public participation and social connection.
The French artist JR exhibits freely in the streets of the world, catching the attention of people who are not typical museum visitors. From Paris to the slums of Brazil and the streets of New York, JR is widely recognised for his huge portraits of anonymous people from across the world, from Kibera to Istanbul, Los Angeles to Shanghai.
Born in 1983 in Paris, JR began his practice at age 17 as a graffiti artist. After discovering a camera on the Paris Metro, JR started documenting the process of his street art and that of fellow graffiti artists through his ‘Expo 2 Rue’ (2001-04) photographic project. He soon transformed the streets of Paris into ‘Sidewalk Galleries’, which directed pedestrians through his open-air art exhibitions.
Following ‘Sidewalk Galleries’, JR travelled through Europe to meet with and observe other artists interested in public and street art. With a newfound interest in the walls and facades of cities, these interactions and conversations inspired JR to begin pasting the portraits of these people across Paris, thus giving birth to his photographic collage practice.
Through his so-called ‘Infiltrating Art’, JR involves communities in his photographic collage practice in which black and white photographs of local people are pasted in an outdoor space. JR’s work engages with a wide range of topics such as media misrepresentation, bias, worker solidarity and gun violence, which directly relate to the anonymous people depicted and the place where their portraits are imaginatively pasted. In incorporating these anonymous local people into his work, JR grounds them as the centre of the discussions posed by his open-air galleries.
In 2011 JR received the TED Prize, after which he launched Inside Out, an international participatory art project that allows people worldwide to get their picture taken and paste it to support an idea and share their experience. As of March 2021, over 420,000 people from more than 138 countries have participated, through mail or gigantic photobooths.
JR’s recent projects include installations for a maximum-security prison in California, the Pantheon in Paris, a container ship, the pyramid of the Louvre, scaffolding at the 2016 Rio Olympics and the US-Mexico border fence. Other notable projects include TIME Magazine covers about COVID and guns in America, a video mural including 1,200 people presented at SFMOMA, a collaboration with New York City Ballet, an Academy Award Nominated feature documentary co-directed with Nouvelle Vague legend Agnès Varda, the monumental mural ‘à la Diego Rivera’ in the suburbs of Paris, an exhibition on the abandoned hospital of Ellis Island and a social restaurant for homeless and refugees in Paris.
JR continues to remain anonymous, never explaining his huge full-frame portraits of people making faces. In doing so, he leaves the space empty for an encounter between the subject and protagonist, the passer-by and interpreter. That is what JR’s work is about, raising questions.
Les Falaises du Trocadéro
JR
From the vantage point of Parvis des Droits de l’Homme in Paris, from May to June 2021, JR exhibited a gigantic trompe l’oeil, a black and white image beneath the Eiffel Tower. Continuing his engagement with architecture and monuments, JR reimagined the area beneath the iconic tower, portraying a scene in which a large precipice parts, revealing deep below a busy street. The installation followed JR’s engagement with the centuries-old technique of trompe l’oeil, a clever tool harnessed by artists to fool viewers into thinking they are looking at the real thing. The resulting effect raised questions regarding the boundaries between our world and, in JR’s case, the photographic one. In the Les Falaises du Trocadéro installation JR also employed anamorphosis, a mathematical illusion and visual game that constructs and deconstructs the image according to the position of the viewer, making his image more lifelike.
While JR never comments on the meaning behind his works, the message behind Les Falaises du Trocadéro is visceral, as viewers are encouraged to interact with the artwork, standing at the edge of the precipice or jumping over the steep drop to the street.
JR at the Louvre
JR
In 2016, responding to an invitation to make an artistic intervention at the Louvre museum in Paris, JR decided to make architect IM Pei’s 21-metre-high pyramid disappear. Inspired by the fact that most visitors turn their back on the famous monument in order to take selfies, JR made the pyramid seemingly vanish using anamorphic techniques. The pyramid rises out of the ground at the center of the Cour Napoléon, the museum’s main courtyard, and its transparent glass structure normally allows visitors to see the Louvre’s façade through it. By reproducing a higly-detailed image of this façade and placing it on the pyramid’s front side, JR’s intervention created a grand-scale trompe l’oeil, disguising the pyramid from view.
JR at the Louvre and the secret of the great pyramiD
JR
In March 2019, on the occasion of the 30th anniversary of the Louvre Pyramid, JR created a collaborative piece of art on the scale of the Napoleon Court. Three years after having made the Pyramid disappear, the artist brought a new light to the famous monument by realizing a gigantic collage, thanks to the help of 400 volunteers. Each day hundreds of volunteers came to help cut and paste the 2,000 strips of paper, making it the biggest pasting ever done by the artist.
The images, like life, are ephemeral. Once pasted, the art piece lives on its own. The sun dries the glue and with every step, people tear pieces of the fragile paper. The process is all about participation of volunteers, visitors, and souvenir catchers. This project is also about presence and absence, about reality and memories, about impermanence.
Punto di Fuga
JR
In July 2021, JR took over the façade of the Farnese Palace, which houses the French Embassy in Italy, in Rome, with a monumental artwork. This spectacular trompe-l’oeil of over 600 m², entitled Punto di Fuga was displayed on the palisades of Piazza Farnese and on a scaffolding structure. The work revealed in its own way a real or revisited part of the palace’s interior, and illustrated the Embassy’s wish for the palace to remain “open” during the duration of its renovation project.
As a tribute to the history of the palace, the work restores the sculpture of the Farnese Hercules to its original place in the Cortile of the palace, as shown in the engravings of the 16th and 17th centuries.
Made of Dibond (printed aluminium) panels fixed to scaffolding and vinyl tarpaulins on the palisades, the work is a perfect example of anamorphosis, a mathematical illusion and a visual game that constructs and deconstructs the image according to the position of the viewer. For the Farnese Palace, as for his previous architectural projects at the Louvre, Palazzo Strozzi or Trocadero, JR invites the visitor to play with the image he has constructed/deconstructed, and to find the perfect point of anamorphosis, located at the threshold of Piazza Farnese, in the middle of Via dei Baullari.
La Ferita
JR
From March to August 2021 JR covered the façade of Florence’s Palazzo Strozzi in an installation he calls ‘La Ferita’ (‘The Wound’). In black and white, the museum is ripped open to reveal the inside of the iconic Renaissance building. Now visible from the exterior are the museum’s colonnade, an imaginary exhibition and a library, together an act of voyeurism which reveals what cannot be seen.
The installation continues JR’s engagement with the centuries-old technique of trompe l’oeil, a clever tool harnessed by artists to fool viewers into thinking they are looking at the real thing. The resulting effect presents questions regarding the boundaries between our world and, in JR’s case, the photographic one. In ‘La Ferita’ JR also employs anamorphosis, a mathematical illusion and visual game that constructs and deconstructs the image according to the position of the viewer, making his image more lifelike.
Despite JR’s consistent silence on the meaning behind his works, ‘La Ferita’ naturally hints at the accessibility of cultural institutions internationally during the Covid pandemic. Indeed, the hit that these institutions have and continue to suffer is reflected in the installation’s title.
PALAIS DE TOKYO
JR
From August to September 2020, JR exhibited on the façade of the Palais de Tokyo in Paris the unusual encounter of Clichy-Montfermeil neighbourhood and the Eiffel Tower. Produced as part of the Jusqu’ici tout va bien exhibition by students from the Kourtrajmé school, this work recalls one of JR’s earliest works, ‘A Portrait of a Generation’ (2004), and his ongoing interest in the neighbourhood community.
The installation continues JR’s engagement with the centuries-old technique of trompe l’oeil, a clever system harnessed by artists to fool viewers into thinking they are looking at the real thing. The resulting effect raised questions regarding the boundaries between our world and, in JR’s case, the photographic one. In the Palais de Tokyo installation JR also employs anamorphosis, a mathematical illusion and visual game that constructs and deconstructs the image according to the position of the viewer, making his image more lifelike.
Whilst JR never comments on the meaning or intention behind his works, leaving it up to viewers instead to interpret, the contrast between the glittering Eiffel Tower and the massive housing blocks was particularly striking. JR’s Palais de Tokyo image encouraged viewers to reconstruct the city and consider the marginalisation and distorted view of its citizens.
Kikito, US-MEXICO border
JR
Following news about the intention to build a permanent wall between the United States and Mexico, JR created in 2017 a gigantic installation supported by scaffolding at the border fence in the Mexican city of Tecate. The installation shows Kikito, a toddler, whose house in Tecate overlooks the border fence, playfully peeking over the fence from his side, which meant that the piece could be better appreciated from the United States.
Tehachapi, the yard, California, USA
JR
In October 2019, JR received permission to work in a maximum-security prison located in Tehachapi, California. Initially, JR went there to meet twenty-eight prisoners and present an idea for a collaborative, artistic project in the central yard. At Tehachapi, the majority of the incarcerated population has been imprisoned for nearly a decade, with many sentenced to life with no chance of parole. JR and his team photographed the men, on by one, from above, and they were given a chance to tell their story in front of a camera. No specific questions were asked; they had the freedom to express themselves candidly. JR also photographed former prisoners and prison staff, collecting a total of forty-eight portraits and stories from the prison system.
Two weeks later, JR returned with his team to paste 338 strips of paper on the ground. In just a few hours, the prison’s incarcerated population worked with guards, former inmates and members of JR’s studio, equipped with push brooms and wallpaper glue, to complete the prison yard pasting.
From the prison yard, the final installation image is very abstract. Yet, from above, it becomes clear – incarcerated people, former inmates, as well as the prison staff, and victims stand shoulder to shoulder. The installation, naturally ephemeral, disappeared in three days under the footsteps of the prison’s incarcerated population.