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Now there are two JR exhibitions to see in London

28 Millimètres, Portrait d’une génération, B11, Destruction #2, Montfermeil, France, 2013 Cibachrome photograph mounted on aluminum Collection of Roman and Charmaine Mendoza: In 2013 JR learned that the housing towers in Les Bosquets were going to be demolished, so he revisited the Portrait of a Generation project. Using images from the original series, he and a team pasted portraits in the building before it was destroyed. He recalled, “We couldn’t get authorization to paste inside. So we got plans from the former inhabitants, and we entered at night, twenty-five of us, and spread out over all the different floors. We pasted eyes in someone’s kitchen, a nose in someone else’s bathroom, and a mouth in a living room When we came down, the police arrested us, but they couldn’t understand why wehad just spent hours in this building that was about to be destroyed. The pastings were so big that they couldn’t see what they were. The next day, when workers started the demolition, the portraits were revealed, little by little, while the cranes were ‘eating’ the building. Only the people who were in the neighbourhood that day witnessed the gigantic spectacle unfold.”

Now you can see two JR exhibitions in London opening today is JR Eye to the world which explores JR’s unique view of humanity as he transcends borders, politics, and cultural identity through the camera lens and JR Chronicles the artist’s largest solo museum show to date.

JR au Louvre, Le secret de la grande pyramide, all the team, picture by JR, France, 2019 ©JR

Bringing together artworks from several significant bodies of work, JR: Eye to the World explores JR’s unique view of humanity as he transcends borders, politics, and cultural identity through the camera lens. JR: Chronicles also opening to the public today at Saatchi Gallery, is JR’s largest solo museum exhibition to date in London and features some of his most iconic projects from the past fifteen years.

JR Tehachapi, California, aerial view of the pasting, 2019 ©JR

In parallel with the exhibitions in London, Pace in New York is also displaying work from JR’s recent project in Tehachapi, California. An installation from JR’s Tehachapi series including photographic works, a wall pasting, and a video is in the Library at 540 West 25th Street. In 2019 JR began a series of projects with inmates at
the maximum-security prison in the Californian mountains.

About the Artist

JR (b. 1983, France) exhibits freely in the streets of the world, catching the attention of people who are not typical museum visitors. He creates “Pervasive Art” that spreads uninvited on the buildings of Paris, the favelas in Rio, the separation wall in the Middle-East or the border between the US and Mexico. JR received the TED Prize in 2011, after which he launched his Inside Out project, an international participatory art project that allows people worldwide to get their picture taken and paste it in public spaces to support an idea and share their experience. In 2013, JR presented his first museum retrospective in the Watari Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo and the Contemporary Arts Center of Cincinnati, followed by Museum Frieder Burda in Baden-Baden in 2014 and the HOCA Foundation in Hong-Kong in 2015. In 2016, he was invited by the Louvre to create a site-specific artwork where he made the famous Louvre pyramid disappear through a surprising anamorphosis. He has additionally directed short movies including Les Bosquets, 2014 and ELLIS, 2015 starring Robert De Niro as well as feature documentaries including Faces, Places, 2017 co-directed with the French filmmaker Agnès Varda and nominated for the Academy Awards in 2018. In fall 2018, JR partnered with TIME to photograph and film 245 Americans in an effort to capture the full scope of the nation’s gun debate in one mural. In 2018, JR held his first major solo exhibition in a French institution at Maison Européenne de la Photographie in Paris, France. A landmark survey exhibition, JR: Chronicles was held at the Brooklyn Museum, New York in 2019-2020, which is now open in London’s Saatchi Gallery on 4 June – 3 October, 2021. @jr

 

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