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I am 25 and I own the biggest art gallery in the world. I exhibit freely in the streets of the world, catching the attention of people who are not museum visitors. My work mixes art and acting, talks about commitment, beauty, freedom, identity and limits. After I found, by chance, a camera in the Paris metro in 2000, I started a tour of European street art, tracking those people who send messages through the walls. Then, I started to work on the vertical limits, going to the valleys and the peaks of Paris, watching the people and the scenes from the forbidden undergrounds and the rooftops of the capital. |
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Face to Face – JR
I am 25 and I own the biggest art gallery in the world.
I exhibit freely in the streets of the world, catching the attention of people who are not museum visitors. My work mixes art and acting, talks about commitment, beauty, freedom, identity and limits.
After I found, by chance, a camera in the Paris metro in 2000, I started a tour of European street art, tracking those people who send messages through the walls. Then, I started to work on the vertical limits, going to the valleys and the peaks of Paris, watching the people and the scenes from the forbidden undergrounds and the rooftops of the capital.
Later, I did “Portrait of a Generation,” a series of portraits of the suburban “freaks” that I posted in the bourgeois districts of the east of Paris, when it used to be the popular neighbourhood. With a 28-millimetre lens, the photos are taken very close to the person. Then, they are posted in huge formats. I use black and white to differentiate from the colour advertising aggression. This illegal project eventually become “official” as the Paris City Hall and the Museum of Photography wrapped their buildings with my photos.
In March 2007, together with Marco, I did “Face2Face,” the biggest illegal photo exhibition ever in eight Palestinian and Israeli cities, and on the security fence/separation wall in this region, and on both sides (23 feet high and 170 feet long). We posted my huge portraits of Israelis and Palestinians, face to face. Everyone said that people would refuse to make faces for the portraits to be posted on the walls and also that the Palestinian police, the Israeli army and the extremists would stop us. It didn’t happen that way and we have posted more than 15,000 square feet of portraits without any major problems.
Through this project, we showed that we could break the limits of possibility if we all take risks together, if we gather as actors in an artistic project. Art is an excuse to “get out of ourselves.”
With a 28-millimetre lens, portraits of people doing faces, huge posters and anonymity, I change some basic rules. The photographer is hidden, does not give interpretations and leaves the space empty for the encounter. As people are asked not to smile but to make faces for the portrait, they are not subjects, but actors. Since the portraits are not seen in a place where people typically go to see art, the passer-by is required for interpretation.
The portraits are posted where they make sense. The real surprise is not to be surprised by something surprising. The real surprise is also to be surprised by something that is not surprising by itself, such as yourself, your neighbour or your enemy. Through the surprise and the question it raises, man can revisit his thinking habits and free himself from stereotypes and prejudices.
This is what I am working on. Raising questions.
