My name is JR. I’m an artist from France, originally.
I’ve always portrayed people in different places
in the world and enlarged anonymous people, getting
their stories in different contexts that have been done
throughout, you know, centuries.
I’ve just tried to reinvent it in a way that it comes
alive, that you can actually ask the people to choose
how they’re gonna be represented, to let them act
themself and choose which side of them they wanna show.
When I started working on those murals
in my neighborhood, you know, in the suburbs of Paris,
I depicted the youth – from the people who did
the riots, all the way to the mayor – from the police
to the drug dealer.
I knew there was good and bad people,
but I know there is good and bad people inside each one
of us.
And it’s not the idea of representing only, you know,
the good guys, the bad guys, ’cause that doesn’t exist.
I don’t consider myself an activist.
When I go in places, I highlight people and enlarge
them, but I don’t take sides.
I don’t say, when I pasted in the wall between Israel
and Palestine, if the wall should be bigger or taken
down.
But just by the fact that the images are there,
and— and how the people responded to it, it raised
questions.
And there’s a lot of questions to— to raise.
That’s what I’ve done again last year, with the little
kid looking over the border – between Mexico and the US.
The border patrol came and kind of smiled at him
and then people came and started, sharing their phones
through the wall, just to take each other’s photos.
And so real people from each side started— really
connected.
The border patrol had strictly forbidden it
and said they would deport people.
But yet when we’ve done it they just closed their eyes
on it and let it happen.
So it shows you also that there is the laws
and there is the people.
And on paper, it wouldn’t be possible.
But in real life, you gotta try.
The project I’m doing with SFMOMA now, The Chronicles
of San Francisco, is basically a very long mural that
depicts the entire population of San Francisco,
from the richest to the poorest, from every kind
of religion, from people I’ve met in every neighborhood
of the city.
For the first time, you will see the entire piece
like a painting at real size,
but everyone will be in a movement.
Over a period of a month, shooting 1200 people was
intense, ’cause then you have their stories.
Everyone comes in with their energy, their life,
their visions.
But at the same time, I’ve never had a better sense
and a better vision of San Francisco.
For this, we had a giant truck, and it had green screen,
it had cameras, it had video, photo,
so that whenever someone would pass by the truck,
we could invite that person in.
I remember that day that we saw a man walking
with a duck on a leash.
And we were like, “Whoa, why is— You know, what’s
happening?” And two minutes later, the guy was, like,
inside the truck with the duck.
And now they’re part of the mural.
It’s exciting to have a community that already exists,
but connected them, and they don’t know it yet.
People shared stuff that I never thought they would
share.
I don’t even know, if I was invited to the same process,
if I would share something like that.
I think because they know I’m just an intermediary,
this is just a piece that will convey their story.
So it’s almost like sending a bottle in the water
and seeing where it goes.
What I almost dreaming for that piece
is that someone will walk in and watch the mural.
There’s a good chance that in the room watching
at the same time as him, there’s someone who’s
in the piece, who can actually be, the— the—
the mediator, and having people basically putting
their own words to it.
Their narrative of the city will always be stronger
than mine,
A lot of the work that I do
is meant to be so that you can go and see yourself,
to engage yourself out of,
like, just being on social media, but going there,
a real place.
The art becomes an excuse for you
to go and see and make your own opinion.
And so I think all my work have always been trying
to push people to go and see with their own eyes.
And I – you know, I keep pushing in that direction.
