JR

JR, Paris, December 2015

power to the people

interview by SVEN SCHUMANN
photography by GIASCO BERTOLI

French street artist JR seems to be omnipresent. His large pastings of people’s faces on buildings around the world populate countless Instagram feeds. He recently released the short film Ellis, starring Robert De Niro. Phaidon published an in-depth monograph of his work. During the 2015 United Nations Climate Change Conference in Paris, he and American film director Darren Aronofsky projected a huge video on the façade of the National Assembly building — multiple faces turning and moving their eyes in harmony.

Despite his international success, JR’s work is not about his name, signature, or identity; it’s all about the people: their face, their message, their community, their local issues, their hopes, and their reality. In that sense, JR is just a medium — his art is a visual possibility for…