By Lane Florsheim
JR’s artistic career began when he found a camera on the Paris subway and embarked on a photographic tour of European street art. Ever since, he has used photography as a means of breaking boundaries and forcing people to see each other in transformative ways.
By displaying immense portraits of individuals who are part of a certain identity in public spaces around the world””often illegally””JR brings the lives of divergent groups of people together. His work challenges the deep-rooted perceptions and judgments that can produce human conflict.
In 2006, for his first major project, JR posted huge portraits of “thugs” from the suburbs of Paris throughout the city’s bourgeois districts. The photos, which included one man with a raised gun and many others making striking facial expressions, were called Portrait of a Generation.
They could be seen on the sides of buildings, bus stops, and restaurants, as well as in smaller corners of the city””at the back of a newspaper box or affixed to a garbage truck.
A year later, with the artist Marco, JR created Face 2 Face, the biggest illegal exhibition ever. Across eight different Palestinian and Israeli cities and on both sides of the security wall, he displayed portraits of Israelis and Palestinians, face to face.
The individuals in the portraits predominantly posed making silly facial expressions, forcing the viewer to see someone else in a light they are not used to.
JR’s work blurs the customary lines between subject, viewer, and creator. In the communities where his projects are based, JR befriends the residents with whom he works, engaging them as models and as collaborators. His subjects eventually become the project’s viewers, as they walk past the imposing images during their daily routines.
JR’s most recent project is entitled INSIDE OUT. He began INSIDE OUT after receiving the TED Prize in 2011. It is the world’s largest participatory art project, encouraging anyone to upload their portrait onto the project website.
JR prints and sends the portraits back to the project’s participants who can then post them in public in support of a cause or idea that is important to them. INSIDE OUT: The People’s Art Project, HBO’s documentary on the project premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival on April 20, tracking the evolution of JR’s undertaking.
While in the city for the premiere, JR also parked a photo booth truck in Times Square and in Red Hook and the Rockaways, two of the areas hit hardest by Hurricane Sandy, to take more portraits for the project.
Portraits could be seen lining former boardwalks and other parts of the affected areas, accessible to non-natives via the New Yorker’s Instagram account, which JR took over during his stay in the city.
JR’s website describes his pervasive projects as being an uninvited art from, but whether welcome or not, his portraits create common experience between different groups of people around the world””a service for humankind that should no doubt be widely appreciated.
Lane Florsheim is a senior at Tufts University where she is studying International Relations. She loves writing and reading about culture, politics, and women’s issues. Lane delights in jewelry making, captivating novels, and travel and exploration. Her personal website is available here. Follow Lane on Twitter @laneflorsheim.
Photo by Salotte 1