Pace opens concurrent exhibitions of JR's work in London and New York
The First Art Newspaper on the Net    Established in 1996 Monday, November 25, 2024


Pace opens concurrent exhibitions of JR's work in London and New York
JR, The Wrinkles of the city, Los Angeles, Jim Budman, Venice, USA, 2011. Color print mounted on dibond, 48-7/8" × 74" (124.1 cm × 188 cm). © JR, courtesy Pace Gallery.



LONDON.- Pace is presenting two exhibitions of leading contemporary artist, JR—JR: Eye to the World in London, and JR: Tehachapi in New York. Marking the gallery’s first London exhibition with the artist, JR: Eye to the World opened on June 4 on the occasion of London Gallery Weekend.

JR’s practice is rooted in his deep commitment to collaborating with individuals and communities alike. His work is characterised by large-scale photographic interventions in urban environments that address cultural and political issues, often with an emphasis on social justice. Each portrait holds a multitude of stories as JR expertly balances the macroscopic with the microscopic, the individual experience with the universal. An extensive online catalogue of accompanying videos, images and texts can be found via the exhibition pages on the Pace website to coincide with the exhibition opening.

Bringing together artworks from several significant bodies of work, JR: Eye to the World explores JR’s unique view of humanity as he transcends borders, politics, and cultural identity through the camera lens. This exhibition coincides with the artist’s largest solo museum show to date, JR: Chronicles, opening this June at Saatchi Gallery, London. Saatchi Gallery features JR’s most iconic works from the last fifteen years, expanding from the recent showcase in Brooklyn Museum, New York.




JR’s ongoing global project, The Wrinkles of the City, shines a spotlight on the overlooked, be it a crumbling building or an elderly person. His interest is in the marks left behind by lived experience. In The Wrinkles of the City, Istanbul, Ali Kamil & Sukran Kadakal, Pasted palimpsest, Turkey (2015), JR captures an intimate portrait of an elderly fisherman and his wife embracing with their eyes closed, aged hands reaching for one another: a testament to the city’s history and the citizens who built it. The title of this piece reveals that the portrait is in fact a palimpsest, a ghostly imprint, beneath which an unknown, hidden image exists, inviting viewer’s imagination and hinting at the secrets of a city. In other works, such as The Wrinkles of the City, Action in Shanghai, Wu Zheng Zhu, Chine (2010) and The Wrinkles of the City, La Havana, Mercedes Décalo Rodríguez, (artwork by JR, project by JR & José Parlá) Cuba (2012), JR pasted the portraits onto dilapidated walls in Shanghai and Havana, actively connecting the citizens with their surroundings, a comment on the enduring strength of both people and architecture in the face of rapid change. Presented in dialogue with one another, the portraits that make up The Wrinkles of the City, despite disparate countries and stories, pay tribute to the communities that shape their cities.

JR’s photographic work gives voice and visibility to forgotten or erased communities. His interest in the relationship between public and private spaces informs his ideas surrounding walls and borders, examining their impact on access and control. The ongoing migrant crisis has been a driving influence for JR. Migrants, Coeur, Quadrichromie, Jordanie (2018), captures an aerial image of Syrian refugee children gathered in a loose heart shaped formation in a camp in Jordan: a poetic reminder of the humanity of individuals no matter how far away.

The use of everyday papier-mâché materials and techniques borrowed from commercial billboard practices is emblematic of JR’s egalitarian approach to art making. In 2019, JR and 400 volunteers descended upon the Louvre’s courtyard to create JR au Louvre et le Secret de la Grande Pyramide. Made of 2000 strips of paper at 10 meters each, this major work created the illusion of an underground cave beneath the iconic glass pyramid built by IM Pei. Over the ensuing days and weeks, the fragile paper shredded under foot and took on new meaning. In the accompanying video, JR comments ‘At this point, people are not sure what’s the work, what’s not the work, where the picture is, if it’s beautiful or not. That’s what art is about, it’s when you question.’ Provoking ingrained expectations is paramount to JR’s practice, as he states, ‘You come to the Louvre expecting a work of art to be hanging on a wall and it’s not, it’s on the ground and it blows away.’

In parallel with the exhibition in London, Pace in New York is also displaying work from JR’s recent project in Tehachapi, California. An installation from JR’s Tehachapi series including photographic works, a wall pasting, and a video are being presented in the Library at 540 West 25th Street. In 2019 JR began a series of projects with inmates at the maximum-security prison in the Californian mountains. One aspect of the project included JR photographing the inmates, recording their stories, and collaborating with them to paste their portraits in the prison yard, which resulted in the triptych Tehachapi, Daytime, Triptych, U.S.A. (2019), on view in New York. In 2020 he returned to the prison to enlist the inmates in a new project: to wheat paste a black and white photograph of the bottom half of the Tehachapi Mountains on the inside of the prison’s high walls. In Tehachapi, Mountain, February 7, 2020, 6.48p.m., U.S.A. (2020), on view in London, JR captures where the mountain top perfectly aligns with the pasted image in a fleeting moment of calm as the sun sets behind the mountains and a prisoner runs across a deserted basketball court. Here, JR’s signature anamorphosis technique explores the interplay of reality and illusion, expansion and confinement.

JR (b. 1983, France) exhibits freely in the streets of the world, catching the attention of people who are not typical museum visitors. He creates “Pervasive Art” that spreads uninvited on the buildings of Paris, the favelas in Rio, the separation wall in the Middle-East or the border between the US and Mexico. JR received the TED Prize in 2011, after which he launched his Inside Out project, an international participatory art project that allows people worldwide to get their picture taken and paste it in public spaces to support an idea and share their experience. In 2013, JR presented his first museum retrospective in the Watari Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo and the Contemporary Arts Center of Cincinnati, followed by Museum Frieder Burda in Baden Baden in 2014 and the HOCA Foundation in Hong-Kong in 2015. In 2016, he was invited by the Louvre to create a site-specific artwork where he made the famous Louvre pyramid disappear through a surprising anamorphosis. He has additionally directed short movies including Les Bosquets, 2014 and ELLIS, 2015 starring Robert De Niro as well as feature documentaries including Faces, Places, 2017 co-directed with the French filmmaker Agnès Varda and nominated for the Academy Awards in 2018. In fall 2018, JR partnered with TIME to photograph and film 245 Americans in an effort to capture the full scope of the nation’s gun debate in one mural. In 2018, JR held his first major solo exhibition in a French institution at Maison Européenne de la Photographie in Paris, France. A landmark survey exhibition, JR: Chronicles was held at the Brooklyn Museum, New York in 2019-2020, which now opened in London’s Saatchi Gallery on 4 June – 3 October, 2021.










Today's News

June 5, 2021

Far from Paris, the Pompidou plans an outpost in Jersey City

The Georgia Museum of Art book wins national award

Takashi Murakami helps present art fair's 'Super-Rough' in SoHo

Two immersive sculpture installations by Leonardo Drew on view at the Wadsworth

Sotheby's sells first NFT that sparked a craze

The Morgan Library & Museum acquires Ashley Bryan's 'Sail Away'

The Met announces gift from the Diamonstein-Spielvogel Foundation to support five fellowships

'Maritime Masterpieces': The salty sea air of harbour life across six centuries

David Zwirner now representing Portia Zvavahera

Pace opens concurrent exhibitions of JR's work in London and New York

Exhibition at Eye Filmmuseum marks 50 years of International Film Festival Rotterdam

The Indian who took the Beatles home for tea

Art Gallery of New South Wales announces winners of Archibald, Wynne, and Sulman prizes

Charleston presents a new series of work by Lisa Brice

Two artist films reveal the dreams, concerns and activism of young Londoners

Mauritshuis The Hague reopens its doors to the public 5 June with 'Fleeting' exhibition

Fondation Henri Cartier-Bresson opens an exhibition of works by Eugène Atget

Saatchi Yates open a solo show of new paintings by Tesfaye Urgessa

Select Design auction features 11 works by George Nakashima

Patricia Leite presents new paintings inspired by São Paulo's landscapes at Thomas Dane Gallery

Solo exhibition of new paintings by Simon English opens at Cooke Latham Gallery

A choreographer finds his way, getting lost in the stars

It's outside, but Shakespeare in the Park still plans social distancing

Fotografiska Stockholm opens the most extensive exhibition of work ever shown by artist Frank Ockenfels

'Big Crown' Rolex Submariner hits $125K to rule Heritage Auctions' timepieces event

Modern & Contemporary Art auction achieves $3.8 million at Heritage Auctions

Top 5 Places to Visit in Dubai




Museums, Exhibits, Artists, Milestones, Digital Art, Architecture, Photography,
Photographers, Special Photos, Special Reports, Featured Stories, Auctions, Art Fairs,
Anecdotes, Art Quiz, Education, Mythology, 3D Images, Last Week, .

 



Founder:
Ignacio Villarreal
(1941 - 2019)
Editor & Publisher: Jose Villarreal
Art Director: Juan José Sepúlveda Ramírez
Writer: Ofelia Zurbia Betancourt

Attorneys
Truck Accident Attorneys
Accident Attorneys
Houston Dentist
Abogado de accidentes
สล็อต
สล็อตเว็บตรง
Motorcycle Accident Lawyer

Royalville Communications, Inc
produces:

ignaciovillarreal.org juncodelavega.com facundocabral-elfinal.org
Founder's Site. Hommage
to a Mexican poet.
Hommage
       

The First Art Newspaper on the Net. The Best Versions Of Ave Maria Song Junco de la Vega Site Ignacio Villarreal Site Parroquia Natividad del Señor
Tell a Friend
Dear User, please complete the form below in order to recommend the Artdaily newsletter to someone you know.
Please complete all fields marked *.
Sending Mail
Sending Successful