Artist

JR

Lives in Paris and NY

Born to a Tunisian mother and European father in the banlieues of Paris, JR started out as a graffiti tagger using the monicker Face 3 before transitioning into photography, taking pictures of other street artists at work. (He still calls himself a “photograffeur.”) In 2004, however, after riots broke out in the banlieues, JR created his first major project, photographing the faces of the rioters and pasting up large prints of their faces around the city. This approach, which humanized a largely immigrant populace that the government officially termed “scum,” has become JR’s trademark. In 2007, he pasted portraits of Arabs and Jews on walls throughout Israel and the West Bank for the project Face2Face, and in 2008, after the government-involved murder of three young men in Rio de Janeiro’s disenfranchised Morro da Providência favela led to riots, he plastered enormous pictures of the eyes of the community’s women (including relatives of the dead youths) on buildings looking down into the city for Women Are Heroes.
After winning the 2011 TED prize, JR inverted his practice for the project Inside Out, inviting people around the globe to send him photographs of themselves that he would then print out at large scale and send back to them to mount publicly. Participants have ranged from North Dakota’s Lakota tribe to the revolutionary Tunisian protesters. Represented in Paris by Emmanuel Perrotin, JR was invited to create a giant photo booth at the Centre Pompidou, and in 2010 his film of theWoman Are Heroes project was premiered at the Cannes Film Festival. “The fact that art cannot change things makes it a neutral place for exchanges and discussions, and then enables it to change the world,” the artist has said. “What is most fascinating to me is involvement.”

Exhibitions
Exhibitions
JR: Chronicles
The exhibition groups the most significant works by the French artist spanning his fifteen-year career
13 Nov 2020 - 09 Feb 2021
London
Exhibitions
JR: Ghosts of Ellis Island. An Unframed project, short preview
About 10% of the millions of migrants who passed through Ellis Island, deemed unhealthy to enter into...
12 Mar 2015 - 30 Apr 2015
Hong Kong
Exhibitions
Ellis Presented by Galerie Perrotin
Galerie Perrotin presents the film Ellis, directed and produced by JR, written by Eric Roth, starring...
02 Dec 2015 - 07 Dec 2015
The Melin Building
Miami
Exhibitions
JR: Chronicles of Clichy-Montfermeil
Jr is unveiling his third intervention at Palais de Tokyo which features a monumental fresco of over...
02 Apr 2017 - 13 Apr 2017
Palais de Tokyo
Paris
Exhibitions
Handle with Care
Following an investigation of the socio-cultural and environmental situation in Venice, an example...
20 Apr 2019 - 15 Jun 2019
Various Venues In Venice
Venice
Art Spaces
Pace Gallery Geneva
Galleries in Geneva
Perrotin Hong Kong
Galleries in Hong Kong
Galleria Continua
Galleries in Chianti, San Gimignano, Volterra
Magda Danysz Gallery – Shanghai
Galleries in Shanghai
Perrotin Seoul
Galleries in Seoul
Lazinc
Galleries in London
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