See the Inventive Installations of Street Art Superstar JR’s Crowd-Pleasing Brooklyn Museum Retrospective
For close to two decades, the streets have been at the heart of
JR’s practice, the place where the French
artist finds his subjects, where he photographs them, and where he
displays his work, wheatpasting enlarged images on buildings around
the world, sometimes illegally. This week, he’s headed indoors for
his first major North
American show, a mid-career survey at the Brooklyn Museum.
Taking over the museum’s great hall, the exhibition, titled
“JR: Chronicles,” begins
with the street artist’s earliest works, taken as a teenager after
he found a camera on the Paris Metro in 2000.
Born in 1983, the pseudonymous artist made his first graffiti
works at just 13. Once he picked up the camera, he began
documenting his friends as they tagged buildings across the city,
posting blown up versions of the resulting photos on exterior walls
for a project he dubbed Expo 2 Rue (Sidewalk
Galleries).
JR, 28 Millimètres, Portrait d’une
génération, Braquage, Ladj Ly vu par JR, Les Bosquets
Montfermeil (2004). Photo ©JR- ART.NET.
In the years since, JR has become known for his socially engaged
work, starting with Portrait of a Generation,
featuring young people who took to the streets of Paris during
the 2005 riots over the deaths of two teenage immigrants hiding
from the police.
Soon after, JR traveled to the Gaza Strip to photograph Israelis
and Palestinians. He pasted large-format version of these images on
either side of the border wall. Perhaps the largest illegal
photography exhibition ever staged, the piece, titled Face
2 Face, aimed to illustrate the similarities between these two
peoples, and asked participants to sign a letter calling for peace
and a two-state solution.
The opening of “JR: Chronicles” at the
Brooklyn Museum at Brooklyn Museum on October 2, 2019 in New York.
Photo by Gonzalo Marroquin/PMC.
More recently, JR has begun creating massive photomontage
murals, made up of hundreds of individual portraits collaged
together. That body of work includes the newly made The
Chronicles of New York City, featuring over 1,000 people
photographed and interviewed in in summer 2018 out of JR’s mobile
photography truck. (It will be on hand at the museum Saturday,
October 5, 5–9:30 p.m., allowing visitors to add their own
wheatpasted portrait to the display.)
Many of the works on view made headlines upon their creation—the
optical illusion that made I.M. Pei’s glass pyramid at the Louvre
disappear, his gun debate video mural
which was both shown at Pace and on the cover of TIME
magazine, and the artist’s installation in Ellis Island’s abandoned
hospitals and corresponding film with Robert De
Niro, to name just a few. The Brooklyn Museum show is an
opportunity to see it all together, and is bound to be a
crowd-pleaser.
Photos displayed “JR: Chronicles” at the
Brooklyn Museum, with the original image shown above a picture of
it displayed in the street. Photo by Gonzalo Marroquin/PMC.
It’s tough to capture the energy of work that takes place on the
street. The show features both examples of his black-and-white
photos and color pictures of the images as they appeared in the
streets, as well as a variety of inventive indoor mural
installations within the museum.
See a selection of images of the exhibition and works from the
show below.
The opening of “JR: Chronicles” at the
Brooklyn Museum at Brooklyn Museum on October 2, 2019 in New York.
Photo by Gonzalo Marroquin/PMC.
The opening of “JR: Chronicles” at the
Brooklyn Museum at Brooklyn Museum on October 2, 2019 in New York.
Photo by Gonzalo Marroquin/PMC.
The opening of “JR: Chronicles” at the
Brooklyn Museum at Brooklyn Museum on October 2, 2019 in New York.
Photo by Gonzalo Marroquin/PMC.
The opening of “JR: Chronicles” at the
Brooklyn Museum at Brooklyn Museum on October 2, 2019 in New York.
Photo by Gonzalo Marroquin/PMC.
JR, The Chronicles of New York
City (2018–19), detail. Photo ©JR- ART.NET.
JR, The Chronicles of New York
City (2018–19), detail. Photo ©JR- ART.NET.
JR, The Chronicles of New York
City (2018–19), detail. Photo ©JR- ART.NET.
JR, 28 Millimètres, Portrait d’une
génération: Araba (2004). Photo ©JR- ART.NET.
JR, 28 Millimètres, Portrait d’une
génération: Araba (2004). Photo ©JR- ART.NET.
JR, 28 Millimètres, Portrait d’une
génération: Byron (2004). Photo ©JR- ART.NET.
JR, 28 Millimètres, Portrait d’une
génération: Byron (2004). Photo ©JR- ART.NET.
JR, 28 Millimètres, Portrait d’une
génération: Christoph (2004). Photo ©JR- ART.NET.
JR, 28 Millimètres, Portrait d’une
génération: Christoph (2004). Photo ©JR- ART.NET.
JR, 28 Millimètres, Face 2 Face,
Loya, Farmer (2007). Photo ©JR- ART.NET.
JR, 28 Millimètres, Face 2 Face,
Muna, Teacher (2007). Photo ©JR- ART.NET.
JR, 28 Millimètres, Face 2 Face,
Khader, Body Guard (2007). Photo ©JR- ART.NET.
JR, 28 Millimètres, Women Are
Heroes, Exhibition in Paris, Pont Louis-Philippe–Pont Marie Side by
Night, with Barge, France (2009). Photo ©JR- ART.NET.
JR, 28 Millimeters, Women Are
Heroes, Action in Jaipur, Holi Fest, India (2009). Photo ©JR-
ART.NET.
JR, 28 Millimeters, Women Are
Heroes, Action dans la Favela Morro da Providência, Stairs, a Few
Days Later, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil (2008). Photo ©JR-
ART.NET.
JR, 28 Millimètres, Women Are
Heroes, Action dans la Favela Morro da Providência, Favela de
Jour, Rio de Janeiro (2008). Photo ©JR- ART.NET.
JR, Women Are Heroes, Liberia,
Rebecca Deman (2009). Photo ©JR- ART.NET.
JR, Women Are Heroes, Liberia,
Jessie Jon (2009). Photo ©JR- ART.NET.
Installation view of “JR: Chronicles” at
the Brooklyn Museum at Brooklyn Museum on October 2, 2019 in New
York. Photo by Gonzalo Marroquin/PMC.
The opening of “JR: Chronicles” at the
Brooklyn Museum at Brooklyn Museum on October 2, 2019 in New York.
Photo by Gonzalo Marroquin/PMC.
The truck for JR’s Inside Out
Project is parked outside the Brooklyn Museum as part of the
“JR: Chronicles” exhibition on October 02, 2019 in New York City.
Photo by Angela Weiss/AFP via Getty Images.
“JR: Chronicles” is on view at the Brooklyn Museum, 200
Eastern Parkway, Brooklyn, October 4, 2019–May 3,
2020.
The post See the Inventive Installations of Street Art
Superstar JR’s Crowd-Pleasing Brooklyn Museum Retrospective
appeared first on artnet News.
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