JR exhibits freely in the streets of the world, catching the attention of people who are not typical museum visitors. From the suburbs of Paris to the slums of Brazil to the streets of Istanbul, JR pastes huge portraits of little-known people. In 2011, after receiving the TED Prize, JR created Inside Out, a global participatory art project that helps communities make a statement by displaying large-scale black and white portraits in public spaces. As of September 2023, over half a million people from more than 150 countries and territories have participated in the project by creating their own installations or entering one of the Inside Out photobooths.
JR’s projects include a large-scale pasting in a maximum security prison in California, a TIME Magazine cover about 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, a huge installation on the Pantheon in Paris, a pasting on the pyramid of the Louvre, a monumental mural “à la Diego Rivera” in the suburbs of Paris, giant scaffolding installations at the 2016 Rio Olympics, an exhibition on the abandoned hospital of Ellis Island, a social restaurant for the homeless and refugees in Paris and a gigantic installation at the US-Mexico border fence.
As he remains anonymous, JR leaves the space open for an encounter between the subject/protagonist and the passer-by/interpreter. That is what JR's work is about, raising questions.
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