JR (Artist)

JR has revolutionized contemporary public art through his massive black-and-white photographic installations that transform urban landscapes while addressing critical social issues and amplifying marginalized voices. This French artist’s approach combines artistic intervention with social activism, creating projects that require deep community engagement and collaboration with local residents.

Street Artist JR: 1 Year Turning the World Inside Out

Almost a year ago, French photographer, street artist and TED Prize winner JR started his Inside Out project and since then, the large-scale participatory art project that transforms messages of personal identity into pieces of artistic works went worldwide! Whether in Haiti, Brazil, Greece, Israel, or Mexico, people are participating and paste their faces in the streets of their cities. Now it was time to look back and summarize the first year of turning the world inside out… ...

Wrinkles of the City: Dope JR & José Parla Murals in Havana

Two of my favorite urban artists, namely Mr 2011 TED Prize winner JR and Mr next level tagging José Parla, recently teamed-up for the next part of the Wrinkles of the City Project - this time they created murals in Havana! For Wrinkles of the City, JR usually portraits elderly people, representing the memory of the city he picks for its interesting past, talks to them and pasts these portraits, printed in monumental sizes, in the very same city in various places that inspire JR and also represent the city heritage. This time, José Parla goes along with him contributing his amazing abstract typography skills. The combination of the large scale portrait photography works of JR and the stunning calligraphy art of José Parla is just beautiful and results in amazing eye-catchers with even more impact than their both works by itself does already. Take a look and share your love! ...

JR Inside Out Haiti

Some months ago, one of the world’s leading artists, TED Prize winner JR came up with the incredible JR Inside Out project, a large-scale participatory art project that transforms messages of personal identity into pieces of artistic work. Inside Out in Haiti Together with Eyes on Haiti, the global art projectInside Out recently rose souls in the Caribbean country of Haiti! It looks like there are lots of talented photographers around the world, identifying with the JR Inside Out philosophy and for that reason join the challenged to use black and white photographic portraits to discover, reveal and share the untold stories and images of people around the world, what a great success! ...

Top 10 Urban Artists 2011

After presenting the five most popular Urbanartcore posts in 2011, I will now honor this year’s top ten urban artists! Of course it’s difficult to do that. There’s a massive count of highly talented urban artists out there around the globe and I’m pretty sure either that there are also some great street or graffiti artists I haven’t heard about yet. Nevertheless I gave my best and wrote together some of the most influential and popular names from both, the street art and graffiti scene. Here we go: ...

JR’s Al Jazeera Interview

Although I already introduced JR’s Inside Out project (did you know that 40 to 50 thousand people are already participating?!) to you, I don’t want to withhold the interview he recently did with Bilal Randeree from Arabian news channel Al Jazeera from you… JR, a semi-anonymous French street artist, uses his camera to show the world its true face, by pasting photos of the human face across massive canvases. After winning the TED Prize, he started a new project, insideoutproject.net, that is apparently taking the world by storm. ...

JR’s Inside Out Project

Don’t know if you already heard about it, but the TED Prize and famous photographer and urban artist JR (the 2011 TED Prize winner) developed a nice new project called Inside Out in March 2011. The idea behind this project is that you submit a portrait photo of yourself, which will be printed and send back to you so that you are able to paste the poster somewhere in the city… ...

JR & The 28 Millimetres Project

Artist Interview | Some days ago, I stumbled upon the fantastic telephone interview with famous photographer, urban artist, political activist and the 2011 TED Prize winner JR, TED did with him in October 2010. It seems like I totally missed it back then… However, JR talks about his “28 Millimetres Project”, how it started, why he did it, what reactions he tried to cause with it and why “Women Are Heroes”… ...

JR in China: The Wrinkles of Shanghai

Photo Paste-Ups | French photographer and urban artist JR is in Shanghai to paste-up a new series of street photographs of elderly Chinese people. As Arrested Motion wrote, the “photos will be pasted up at locations that he feels speak to the heritage of a city that has definitely has its share of ups and downs”. After his participation in the “Abu Dhabi Art Fair” in 2009 and the fantastic “Women Are Heroes” project, “The Wrinkles of the City” is JR’s latest urban photography project and is supported by Magda Danysz Gallery. ...

Princess Hijab, Urban Bowling & Subway Exhibition

Before you end your day today, enjoying the bright summer weather, I give you interesting lecture tips for the weekend and some nice inspiring urban art impressions. This week was characterized by some really amazing solo-artworks, new announcements of attractive street art exhibitions and of course a lot of new mural artworks… This is this week’s urban art eye candy: Vhils & JR big in Los Angeles - The both urban artists Vhils and JR did a great new mural artwork in the city of Los Angeles! ...

Women Are Heroes! Time Lapse by JR

Do you remember the much talked “Women Are Heroes” exhibition by famous photographer and street artist JR, which held last year at Île Saint-Louis in Paris? Today I found the corresponding time lapse video, which shows in a stunning way the development of the giant pasted images of African women on the walls along the Seine River. The video gives also an overview about the press reporting as well as the opinions by Parisian citizen. Of course, it also shows the painful process of buffing the leftover of the fleeting street art… ...