FACES ON WALLS
FEW CAN SAY AS MUCH WITH AN IMAGE AS JR.
He’s called JR and he’s French. Nothing special there. The thing that strikes me about JR, though, and the world it seems, is that few can use pictures of people with the kind of impact he does. He blows photographs up big on the streets, pictures of people the world would otherwise forget. And he does it to provoke.
JR isn't afraid to use his art to say something to the world - to make others see that the kids from the Les Bosques suburbs in Paris are not the villainous rioters the world’s press might have them; or, with a series of portraits outside the security barrier in Bethlehem, that Palestinians and Israelis are cut from a similar cloth, like “twin brothers raised in different families”. JR has built his name on such ideas; simple, but beautifully conceived.
