The Infiltrator: How French street artist JR puts his work amongst the people

French street artist JR creates what he calls “Infiltrating Art”, art that is truly free for everyone to admire. He exhibits his large photographs on walls all over the world, usually working together closely with the local community. Photographing locals, he then pastes their faces all over their own neighbourhoods and communities. There is no explanation accompanying the huge portraits, allowing for passersby to make their own associations and stories. Yet often, the very locations of the photographs speak volumes. We take a look at some of his most important projects around the world.     

Portrait of a Generation (2004-2006)

In 2004, JR held his first exhibition on the walls of Les Bosquets, the ‘ghetto’ of Montfermeil, a suburb of Paris. He was searching for places where people wouldn’t expect to see art. He photographed the young inhabitants of the neighbourhood and pasted enlarged copies of the photos on the walls. After riots broke out in that same neighbourhood in 2005, triggered by the deaths of two teenage boys who had been hiding from the police in an electricity substation, JR returned to the neighbourhood in 2006. He had become friends with many of the people there, who were now being portrayed as out-of-control problem kids by the media. JR wanted to challenge the term racaille, or “scum”, that the Minister of the Interior had used to describe the rioters. Together with his friend, local artist Ladj Ly, JR started a project with the young people of Les Bosquets. He shot portraits of them pulling scary faces, caricaturing themselves, then pasted the enlarged photographs all over Les Bosquets, as well as in bourgeois districts of the city. The in-your-face portraits of these people playing the part of the bad boy sharply provoked passers-by to question the way they were portrayed in the media.  

Face 2 Face (2007)

In 2007, JR and his artistic collaborator Marco organised the largest illegal photography exhibition ever. They pasted monumental portraits of Israelis and Palestinians side-by-side, face-to-face, on both sides of the separation wall and in several Palestinian and Israeli cities. They photographed Palestinians and Israelis with the same occupation, and placed them right beside each other, showing people how many similarities these conflicted people really share. In the words of JR and Marco: “After a week, we had the exact same conclusion: these people look the same; they speak almost the same language, like twin brothers raised in different families. A religious covered woman has her twin sister on the other side. A farmer, a taxi driver, a teacher, has his twin brother in front of him. And he is endlessly fighting with him. It’s obvious, but they don’t see that. We must put them face to face. They will realize.”

Women Are Heroes (2008-2014)

In 2008, JR started a new project titled “Women Are Heroes,” which ended in 2014. Wanting to underline the important role of women in society and to highlight their dignity, JR photographed women around the world in their everyday lives and pasted their photographs in their villages, cities, even on the other side of the world. In the Morro da Providência favela in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, he pasted huge photos of the faces and eyes of local women on buildings covering the mountainside. In Kenya, he placed the eyes and faces of women from the slums of Kibera on their rooftops. He also worked with women in India, Cambodia, Sierra Leone, Liberia and Sudan. At the end of each project, he made a book which he shared with the participants. The project ended in July 2014, when 2600 strips of paper with women’s faces were pasted on a container ship in Le Havre, France. The ship travelled across the globe to Malaysia, carrying the many faces of the women to different parts of the world.

The Wrinkles of the City (2008-2015)

In 2008, JR initiated “The Wrinkles of the City”, a touching project presented in various cities around the world where both human and architectural wrinkles can be found. He started in Cartanega, Spain, where he pasted pictures of the oldest inhabitants of the town on the historical facades. The project continued in Shanghai, Los Angeles, Havana and Berlin, ending in Istanbul in 2015. In this last chapter of “Wrinkles of the City,” JR portrayed older people who had lived through the great changes and upheavals of their city, in particular the secularisation of Istanbul after 1924. By enlarging their portraits and pasting them in different neighbourhoods, he reflected the changes in the architecture of the city’s various areas.