There are only a few contemporary artists whose exhibitions stay with me long after I’ve seen them. David Hockney, Martin Parr, Banksy, and Yayoi Kusama have offered some of my most memorable artistic experiences since moving to London seven years ago.

Earlier this summer, I visited JR Chronicles at the Saatchi Gallery, a powerful retrospective exploring JR’s work and his vision of art’s role in society.

Today, DOYOUSPEAKLONDON invites you to see the world through JR’s eyes.

JR, the eye of the streets

JR, a French renowned artist, is also called “Photograffeur”  (a pun on the words “photographer” and “graffiti artist, graffeur” in french) because he uses photography as main media in his art and paste his creations in the street.

JR first started as a graffiti artist on the streets and suburbs of Paris, but when he found a camera in the tube in Paris he began to take pictures of graffiti artists and pasted them in the streets. This is how his project Expo 2 Rue (Sidewalk Galleries) was born.

I was blown away by the intelligence, sensitivity, and artistic skills JR expresses through his artwork. Because his work is all about getting to know the people better and putting them in the spotlight without any judgment. Making them feel alive, valued, whatever their backgrounds, religion, race, country.

JR humanists projects

With his creations, JR tackles some of the world’s biggest social and political issues.

For his Face 2 Face project in 2006–2007, JR photographed Israelis and Palestinians (even amid the tensions in Gaza) and pasted their portraits side by side on both sides of the border wall.

The striking part? It was impossible to tell who was Israeli and who was Palestinian, placing everyone on equal footing and sending a clear message in favor of peace. Isn’t that an incredibly brave and admirable act?

With his project “Women are heroes” JR gives women from different countries a voice. Each of them has a story to tell and is able to testify about personal hardships. JR celebrates each individuality, offers them dignity.

Several other projects are thoroughly detailed, like:

The wrinkles of the city (2008-2015) highlighting portraits of elderly townspeople pasted on the wall of buildings to symbolise the passage of time;
Inside Out (2011-ongoing), following JR’s TED price in 2011, “giving individuals the opportunity to use their own portrait to highlight a statement or issue in their own community”;

Tehachapi (2019), where JR created a collaborative and artistic project with prisoners and staff from this prison. He ended up with 48 portraits which he pasted on the prison yard. This project is particularly moving. It shows staff, prisoners, victims working hand in hand to complete the project.

Also, a video explains all steps of the project and the stories each participant told in front of the camera. I personally thought of the bravery of both the artist innovating such a difficult project due to the context and the prisoners who accepted to confide their personal (sometimes tragic) stories.

Le Louvre (2016 & 2019): JR “made the pyramid seemingly vanish using anamorphic technics”.

JR unique artistic signature

JR says he “has the largest – and free- art gallery in the world”.

Thanks to his photographic collage technique, his photographs are exhibited everywhere in the world, on walls, easily catching the eyes and attention of millions of people, many of them being unfamiliar with museums.

But how does JR work exactly?
Once he has all portraits, he prints them out on continuous sheets of paper 36 inches wide.

Then he draws lines that divide the image into stripes for printing and ultimately for putting the strips in the right order. Ultimately he pastes the prints on walls.

Amazing when you realise how many stripes are assembled to complete a photograph…and the conditions JR sometimes has to fight to be able to paste his prints as street walls are not always straight and smooth, or even easily accessible!

Can art change the world?

“if you change the perception we have about a place and about people, it’s a way of changing the world. I feel like as artists we need to be the optimists of this world because there are enough pessimists out there”. JR

I highly recommend this video of JR that will hopefully spread a wave of optimism and -who knows- inspire some of you to create a better world 🙂

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If you’re planning a visit to JR exhibition soon, please share your experience on DOYOUSPEAKLONDON!

And don’t forget to check out my other exhibitions recommendations here!

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To go further:
Saatchi Gallery website
JR Chronicles is running until 3 October 2021
JR official website