Collection: JR

(Paris 1983)

JR is a French artist known worldwide for his projects that combine photography, public art, and social engagement. By combining different expressive languages, he aims to stimulate reflections on social fragilities.
Starting from the Parisian suburbs, JR brings his art around the world with monumental public art interventions capable of interacting with large numbers of people and activating entire communities, from 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 issues of migrants and refugees have long been part of JR's investigation. With the project Déplacé∙e∙s, started in 2022 and presented for the first time in Turin, the artist traveled to crisis areas, from war-torn Ukraine to the vast refugee camps of Mugombwa in Rwanda and Mbera in Mauritania, Cúcuta in Colombia, and Lesbos in Greece, to reflect on the difficult conditions in which thousands of people find themselves today due to conflicts, wars, famines, climate change, and to engage audiences excluded from the artistic and cultural circuit under the banner 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 the people and is realized with the people, revealing the importance of our individual and collective role in improving the present and seeking to answer a central question for the artist: can art change the world?
In Turin, from February 9, 2023, to July 16, 2023, the first Italian solo exhibition curated by Arturo Galansino was set up at the Gallerie d’Italia, Piazza San Carlo.