JR

JR, un ex-graffeur devenu photographe, monte un projet avec les jeunes de la cité des Bosquets, à Montfermeil, en banlieue parisienne. L'artiste les photographie dans des poses menaçantes. Il expose ses photos, depuis près de cinq années, sur les espaces vierges que les villes lui offrent à travers le monde entier.

A young globe-trotting artist, JR has exhibited his photographs for the past six years or so on town walls from Montfermeil-les-Bosquets to Jerusalem. His approach, which he calls « artivist, » tends to draw art into a space where raw confrontation, without references, is still possible. Once denounced, he now receives a blank sheet commensurate to his way of working from the towns where he exhibits, the results of which may be seen at the Tate Modern, the Biennale di Venezia, the Photographic Museum of Amsterdam, the Rencontres d'Arles.... A former graffiti artist, JR soon turned to photography, producing portraits of street-artists, which he would then glue to the walls of the Paris Métro. The 2005 riots started the colossal « 28 millimetres » project : black-and-white portraits taken in every corner of the planet and exhibited in giant format in the streets of countries at war. Thus, for the « Face2Face » component of this project, photographs of grimacing imams, priests and rabbis were displayed on either side of the wall separating Israel and the Palestinian sectors. Through his undeniable political involvement, JR forces us to be witnesses to the global phenomena that are too quickly forgotten. His film entitled Women are Heroes came out in cinemas in January 2011..