JR is a photographer who works on the borders of art and activism. To him the streets are one big art gallery and the city is the playground for gigantic shows. Since 2001, from Paris to Los Angeles via Montfermeil-Clichy-sous-Bois in France or Jerusalem, JR has presented many of his giant pasted photos in illicit street shows.
JR began photography in 2000 and started by photographing graffiti artists in action, then decided to invest himself the walls of his city, Paris. In 2004, he worked on his 28 millimeters series, which the first chapter called Portrait of a generation even made the New York Times cover. The giant portraits of young people from the Paris suburbs were then shown in their very own towns and then brought back, to raise consciousness, to the center of Paris on European House of Photography Art Center and on the Paris City Hall. After that in 2007 he added a second chapter to the series : 28 millimeters - Face2Face, Israelis and Palestinians - Portrait of twin brothers. JR made portraits of Israelis and Palestinians who had the same job to show them literally face to face on both sides of the separation / security wall in Israel and then in several Palestinian and Israeli towns.
Then from 2007 JR initiates his project Women Are Heroes that is displayed from 2008. By photographing women in Sierra Leone, Liberia, southern Sudan or Kenya, JR pays tribute to their dignity in these conflict areas and shares their stories. He exhibits their portraits in their home country and in spectacular exhibitions in several other cities around the world. The project leads JR in Brazil where he pursued to project to the scale of an entire favela, Cambodia and India. Women Are Heroes has also been the subject of a film made by JR, selected at Cannes Film Festival for the Critics' Week in association with the Official Selection.
Since then, JR has started a new series of works The Wrinkles of the City, imprinting the cities' memories through the testimony of their elder inhabitants. Each pasted portraits is like a layer, thick of paper and glue, which is superimposed on the facades. The superimposition of the portraits and their wrinkles shows the city's creases, highlights traces of history, sometimes in a painful way for a city that also looses certain aspect of its own youth.
March 2, 2011 at the TED conference in Long Beach, California JR called for the creation of an art project that the whole world would share: Inside Out Project. The concept is that everyone can share his portrait and a message with the world. The Photographic Cabins Inside Out are in the streets and thus allow everyone to participate. Since March 2011 more than 100,000 portraits were sent to over 108 countries. The project is exposed on the website www.insideoutproject.net.
In April 2014 JR became choreographer for the New York City Ballet and created Les Bosquets, a ballet inspired by his first project Portraits of a generation and riots in French suburbs in 2005. Six performances took place at Lincoln Center in New York. In August 2014 JR is made to revive the memory of Ellis Island, island whereby immigrants entering the United States. Building on Ellis Island archives, he creates twenty collages that evoke the stories of these immigrants in the abandoned buildings of the island.
Selected Solo Shows
2016
Vous êtes ici, exposition-atelier à la Galerie des enfants, Centre Pompidou, Paris, France
24 heures au musée du Louvre, programmation dans l'auditorium et dans le musée, installation sur la Pyramide, musée du Louvre, Paris, France
2015
HOCA Foundation, Hong Kong, China
CAC Malaga, Malaga, Spain
Tri Postal, Lille, France
Nuit Blanche, Toronto, Canada
Watari-Um Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo, Japan
Tribeca Film Festival, New York, New York, United States
2014
Paris Photo 2014, Grand Palais, Paris, France
Dallas Contemporary Museum, Dallas, Texas, United States
Frieder Burda Museum, Baden Baden, Germany
Insight, Magda Danysz Gallery, Shanghai, China
Photo Shanghai, Shanghai exhibition center, Shanghai, China
Power Station of Art, Magda Danysz Gallery, Shanghai, China
Ellis Island, New York, New York, United States
Le Havre, France
Panthéon, Paris, France
Unframed Book, Editions Alternatives
New York City Ballet, New York, New York, United States
2013
Watari-Um Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo, Japan
La Friche Belle de Mai, Marseille, France
Contemporary Arts Center, Cincinnati, Ohio, United States
Unseen Photo Fair, Amsterdam, Netherlands
Festival « Terres d'Eaux », Le Havre, France
Palais de Tokyo Parvis MK2 Bibliothèque, Paris, France
2012
Overlook, Magda Danysz Gallery, Shanghai, China
Festival Images, Vevey, Switzerland
2011
Les Rencontres d'Arles, Arles, France
Emirati Expressions, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates
Paris Delhi Bombay, Centre Pompidou, Paris, France
JR and the TED prize, TED Foundation, Long Beach, California, United States
Women are heroes, in cinemas
2010
Elysee Museum / Images Festival, Vevey, Switzerland
Biennale d'art contemporain, en collaboration avec Magda Danysz, Dhanghai Art Museum, Shanghai, China
The Wrinkles of the City, Magda Danysz Gallery, Shanghai, China
2009
Casa França Brasil, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Mairie du 4e arrondissement, Pavillon de l'Arsenal, Ile Saint-Louis, Paris
Les Rencontres d'Arles, Arles, France
2008
Carthagena, Spain
Rath Museum, Geneva, Switzerland
Tate Modern, London, England
Bruxelles, Belgique
2007
Les Rencontres d'Arles, Arles, France
Artitud, Berlin, Germany
Biennale of Venice, Arsenal, Venice, Italy
ARTCURIAL, Paris, France
Foam - Musée de la Photographie, Amsterdam, Netherlands
2006
Murs de l'Espace des Blancs Manteaux, Paris, France
Parvis de l'Hôtel de Ville, Paris, France
Murs de la Maison Européenne de la Photographie, Paris, France
Wuppertal, Germany
11 Spring, Manhattan, New York, New York, United States
2005
Circle Culture, Berlin, Germany
Montanashop, Barcelone, Spain
Les Muses, Paris, France
2004
The Arcade, Manhattan, New York, United States
2003
La Loge, Paris, France
Selected Group Shows
2016
La Marche, JR and Darren Aronofsky, projection on the Assemblée Nationale, the Louvre, the Panthéon, the Musée Picasso, the Bibliothèque Sainte-Geneviève during the conference on the climate COP21, Paris, France
2015
360 degrees, Magda Danysz Gallery, Shanghai, China
Interventions, Galerie Magda Danysz, Paris France
Choices 2, Magda Danysz Gallery, Shanghai, China
2014
Espace Fondation EDF, Paris, France
2013
Choices, Magda Danysz Gallery, Shanghai, China
2012
Collection Nicolas Laugero, Grand Théâtre d'Angers, Angers, France
Shanghai la tentation de l'occident, Institut Culturel Bernard Magrez au Château Labottière, Bordeaux, France
2011
Art In the Streets, MOCA, Los Angeles, California, United States
2010
Viva la Revolucion : A Dialogue with the Urban Landscape, Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego, California, United States