JR in PaPa Land | The Museum Of Photography, Paris
From November 7th, 2018 to February 10th, 2019
by Charlotte Amey
Drago is proud to announce that JR, the French street artist who was featured in TIME Magazine as one of the 100 most influential people this year and who has published two ground-breaking books with us, is exhibiting at the Museum of Photography in Paris from 07/11/2018 – 10/02/2019.
With his identity deliberately left unconfirmed, JR has embraced a nomadic life, traveling to different cities to flypost huge black-and-white photographic images in public locations. These larger-than-life frescos, often depicting marginalized figures such as those inhabiting the outskirts of Paris where the 2005 riots began, dare their viewers to ignore them.
In The Wrinkles of the City series (two of which – Shanghai (2010) and Los Angeles (2011) – were published by Drago), JR concentrates on bridging the generational gap – challenging the modern obsession for erasing the signs of aging and refusing to allow the elderly to be forgotten by uniting their lined visages with the historical cracks and fissures of the city walls.
In 2017 JR made his first foray into the rural areas of his native homeland, coming to the forefront of the public eye through his experiments with film. Together with the renowned New Wave director, Agnès Varda, JR made the Oscar-nominated documentary Faces Places, which celebrates the people living in France’s forgotten rural villages and which won the L’Oeil d’Or at the Cannes Festival 2017. By pasting gigantic print outs of everyday citizens in the location they live in, JR exalts normality to the rank of celebrity, working towards his goal of bringing together people of all backgrounds.
Momentum is JR’s first major exhibition in a French institution. It collects together the artist’s first photographs, monumental collages of his biggest projects such as those mentioned above and several new installations that focus on the hopelessness of gun control in the US. From 3pm the auditorium projects a series of cinematic pieces. Working both alone and in conjunction with other artists and directors, JR adds this exciting new medium to his oeuvre, building it into an integral part of it rather than a mere “making-of” to document his creative processes. Through film, JR allows us a more intimate perspective on the people who inspire his work, immortalizing them even further.
