Bobby Yip / Reuters
"Inside Out", an artwork by French street artist JR, is displayed on the roof of a foot bridge at Hong Kong's Financial Central District Sept. 21.
Bobby Yip / Reuters
Vehicles drive past a foot bridge decorated with "Inside Out", an artwork by French street artist JR, at Hong Kong's Financial Central District Sept. 21.
More photos of the French artist's installations on PhotoBlog.
Thony Belizaire / AFP - Getty Images
Women walk by posters of Haitians on Jan. 10, 2012 in the Port-au-Prince neighborhood of Petionville. The portraits are part of the "Rising Souls Haiti" project commemorating the second anniversary of the Jan. 12, 2010 earthquake in a partnership with by French photographer and TED prize 2011 JR's 'Inside Out' project. Rising Souls Haiti aims to bring attention to the faces of Haitian citizens who day after day thrive in dire odds.
From Cité Soleil to Petionville, over 500 images, taken by Haitian photographers and printed by JR’s 'Inside Out' project: Rising Souls- Haiti, celebrate the resilience of the Haitian people. If the giant portraits of every day people looks familiar to you, you might have seen the French artist's work before. Today larger-than-life faces appeared in Haiti, but he's done projects in New York, Rio de Janeiro, Paris, Caracas and the West Bank.
"The real heroes are sometimes not where you think they are, they are right right there in the street, everywhere around you" -- JR.
Scroll down to see more photos of his previous work and links to videos, interviews and more information.
New York:
Spencer Platt / Getty Images
A picture by the French street artist JR is plastered to a wall under a highway as part of a community project called "Through A Mother's Eyes," which involves members of the economically distressed neighborhood of Hunts Point in images taken by and of themselves, June 30, 2011 in New York City. JR, a recent TED prize winner, has staged similar projects around the world that look to transform high crime and impoverished neighborhoods into spaces for street art combined with the celebration of community.
West Bank:
David Silverman / Getty Images
A Palestinian man strides past Israel's separation barrier where French artists from the "Face2Face" project have pasted giant posters, March 6, 2007 in the biblical town of Bethlehem in the West Bank. The Face2Face project produces similar portraits of Palestinians and Israelis who do similar jobs, and then posts them alongside each other on both the Israeli and Palestinian side of the separation barrier. The authors say they hope their project will contribute to a better understanding between Israelis and Palestinians.
Caracas:
Leo Ramirez / AFP - Getty Images
Giant portraits of women whose children were killed are pasted on a wall to raise awareness about the victims of violence in Caracas, Nov. 19, 2011. Huge photographs were pasted on facades in poor and commercial areas as part of a project called "Esperanza" (Hope), in the framework of French artist and activist JR's world project "Inside Out", which aims to show unknown stories through the exposition of giant portraits.
Paris:
Martin Bureau / AFP - Getty Images
A picture by French artist and photographer JR pasted on a wall of the bank of the River Seine as part of the exhibition
English trailer for "WOMAN ARE HEROES" by JR presented in May in the Cannes international film festival and released on the 12/01/2011.
Music by Jean-Gabriel Becker of Sounds & Sons, Patrice and Massive Attack.
Carlos Garcia Rawlins / Reuters
Volunteers put up large portraits of women whose children were victims of violence in Caracas, Venezuela, Nov. 19. Close to 52 five-metre high portraits were pasted on walls of poor and commercial areas of the city as part of a project called "Esperanza" (hope) by French artist JR. The project is in line with JR's world project "Inside Out", which aims to highlight stories about ordinary people through large portraits displayed on outdoor facades.
Just last week I posted about the rescue of Washington Nationals catcher Wilson Ramos from kidnappers, so the timing of the artist's work in Venezuela seems to be fortuitous considering such a high-profile case caught the attention of many people both inside and outside the crime-ridden country's borders.
To see more of artist JR's work around the world, check out his site.
Carlos Garcia Rawlins / Reuters
Volunteers put up a large portrait of a woman whose son was a victim of violence, in Caracas, Venezuela, Nov. 19.
Vanderlei Almeida / AFP - Getty Images file
File photo dated Aug. 20, 2008 shows a general view of the "Morro da Providencia" favela, one of the most violent of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil where French photographer JR exhibited a project called "Women Are Heroes." The photographer, whose real name is unknown but who is famous for displaying his giant photographs across cities worldwide, was awarded the 100,000 USD TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design) Prize on Oct. 20, 2010.
We're a few days late with this news, but better late than never I guess.
The New York Times: Award to Artist Who Gives Slums a Human Face:
Reached by telephone on Wednesday morning on a bus in Shanghai, where he was headed to work on a largely unauthorized photo-pasting project to draw attention to the city’s demolition of historic neighborhoods, J R said that he had learned of the prize only two weeks ago and that he had not yet had time to think of a wish.
But he said that it would undoubtedly involve his kind of guerrilla art, which he has been creating with the help of volunteers in slums in Brazil, Cambodia and Kenya — where the outsize photographs, printed on waterproof vinyl, doubled as new roofs for ramshackle houses. “I’m kind of stunned,” he said of the prize. “I’ve never applied for an award in my life and didn’t know that somebody had nominated me for this.”
Read the rest of the story, and see more pictures, at the Times site.
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