JR owns the biggest art gallery in the world. He exhibits freely in the streets of the world, catching the attention of people who do not visit museum. His work mixes art and action, talks about commitment, freedom, identity and limit. After he found a camera in the Paris subway, he did a tour of European Street Art, tracking the people who communicate messages via the walls.
In 2006, he made portraits of a generation, portraits of the suburban ‘thugs’ that he posted in huge formats in the bourgeois districts of Paris. This illegal project became official when the Paris City Hall wrapped its building with JR’s photos. In 2007, with Marco, he did Face 2 Face, the biggest illegal photo exhibition ever. JR posted huge portraits of Israelis and Palestinians face to face in eight Palestinian and Israeli cities (Project “Face to Face”) on the both sides of the security fence / separation wall. In 2008, he embarked for a long international trip for ‘Women’, a project in which he underlined the dignity of women who are often the targets of conflicts and called his project ” Women are Heroes“. In September 2009 he showed his project in Paris at the Seine and it was quite amazing to see it, but at this time I didn’t know the concept behind the big eyes, which where watching the people.
After these local exhibitions, the images are transported to London, New York, Berlin or Amsterdam where people interpret them in the light of their own personal experience.
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