JR (artist)

JR
JR à la Galerie Perrotin, 2015
Born	Jean René (1983-02-22) 22 February 1983 (age 34)
Nationality	French
Known for	Street art, photography, graffiti
Notable work	Inside Out Project
Spouse(s)	Prune Nourry
Awards	TED Prize
Website	www.jr-art.net

JR (born 22 February 1983) is the pseudonym of a French photographer and artist whose identity is unconfirmed. Describing himself as a photograffeur, he flyposts large black-and-white photographic images in public locations, in a manner similar to the appropriation of the built environment by the graffiti artist. He states that the street is "the largest art gallery in the world". He started out on the streets of Paris. JR's work "often challenges widely held preconceptions and the reductive images propagated by advertising and the media."

JR's work combines art and action, and deals with commitment, freedom, identity and limits. He has been introduced by Fabrice Bousteau as: "the one we already call the Cartier-Bresson of the 21st century". On 20 October 2010, JR won the TED Prize for 2011. He used the $100,000 award money to start the Inside Out Project.

JR began his career as a teenage graffiti artist who was by his own admission not interested in changing the world, but in making his mark on public space and society. His graffiti efforts often targeted precarious places like rooftops and subway trains, and he enjoyed the adventure of going to and painting in these spaces. After finding a camera in the Paris Metro, JR and his friends began to document the act of his graffiti painting. At the age of 17, he began applying photocopies of these photographs to outdoor walls.

JR later travelled throughout Europe to meet other people whose mode of artistic expression involved the use of outdoor walls. Then, he began wondering about the vertical limits, the walls and the façades that structure cities. After observing the people he met and listening to their message, JR pasted their portraits up in the streets and basements and on the roof tops of Paris.

Between 2004 and 2006, JR created Portraits of a Generation, portraits of young people from the housing projects around Paris that he exhibited in huge format. This illegal project became official when the City of Paris put JR’s photos up on buildings. At the beginning of his projects, JR wanted to bring art into the street: "In the street, we reach people who never go to museums."

In 2007, with Marco, JR put up enormous photos of Israelis and Palestinians face to face in eight Palestinian and Israeli cities on either side of the Separation Barrier. Upon his return to Paris, he pasted these portraits up in the capital. For the artist, this artistic act is first and foremost a human project: "The heroes of the project are all those who, on both sides of the wall, allowed me to paste the portraits on their houses."