JR owns the biggest art gallery on this planet. "He exhibits freely in the streets of the world, catching attention of people who do not usually visit museums" (Women are Heroes, Berrebi).
He once found a camera in a Paris subway and thus his journey began of photographing people and pasting their photos on the streets of Paris. In 2007, he created Face2Face, "the largest illegal photo exhibition ever created...he put enormous photos of Israeli and Palestinians face to face on either side of the Separation Barrier."
Marco Berrebi says, "JR creates pervasive art that spreads, uninvited, on the buildings in the Paris-area housing, on the walls of the Middle East, on the broken bridges of Africa, and the favelas of Brazil...elderly women become models for a day; kids turn into artists for a week. In this artistic ability, there is no stage separating the actors from the spectators."
Judith Anyango, Kenya, Women Are Heroes.
“The city’s the best gallery I could imagine. I would never have to make a book and then present it to a gallery and let them decide if my work was nice enough to show it to people. I would control it directly with the public in the streets” - JR
JR leaves space for an encounter between the subject/protagonist and the passerby/interpreter. This is the essence of JR's work: raising questions.
No comments:
Post a Comment