Collection: JR

(Paris 1983)

JR is a French artist known worldwide for his projects that combine photography, public art and social commitment. By combining different expressive languages, he is committed to stimulating reflections on social fragilities.
Starting from the Parisian banlieue, JR takes his art all over the world with monumental public art interventions capable of interacting with large numbers of people and activating entire communities, from the Brazilian favelas to a maximum security prison in California, from the Louvre Pyramid to the Egyptian pyramids, from the border between Israel and Palestine to that between Mexico and the United States.
The problems of the migrants and refugees have long been part of JR's investigation. With the project Déplacé∙e∙s , begun in 2022 and presented for the first time in Turin, the artist travelled to crisis zones, from war-torn Ukraine to the vast refugee camps of Mugombwa, Rwanda, and Mbera, Mauritania, Cùcuta in Colombia and Lesbos, Greece, to reflect on the difficult conditions in which thousands of people live today due to conflicts, wars, famines, climate change and to engage audiences excluded from the artistic and cultural circuit in the name of values ​​such as freedom, imagination, creativity and participation.
Although ephemeral, JR's art creates an impact on society and the world we live in. It is made for people and is made with people, revealing the importance of our individual and collective role in improving the present and in trying to answer a central question for the artist: can art change the world?
In Turin, from 9 February 2023 to 16 July 2023, the first Italian solo exhibition curated by Arturo Galansino was set up at the Gallerie d'Italia, Piazza San Carlo.