fluoro Giveaway: ‘JR: Can Art Change The World?’
fluoro is giving away a copy of JR: Can Art Change The World?, the world’s first major, in-depth retrospective monograph on JR, the enigmatic and semi-anonymous Parisian street-artist and photographer.
JR started his career as a teenage graffiti artist, using the streets of Paris as his canvas. His focus shifted to the medium of photography after he found a camera on the Paris Subway. He began documenting the act of graffiti in Paris before he travelled extensively throughout Europe taking his camera with him. The stimulus clicked, and today he’s well known for a medium that blends photography and graffiti, a title he has coined as photograffeur. While his true identity remains unknown, his large-scale photographic works are seen globally.
His work is a form of social commentary, giving a voice to the voiceless, creating open public forums from art for social justice, freedom and identity. His pieces are seen pasted onto urban environments, large buildings, buses and even shipping containers, and usually in areas with marginalised communities around the world.
It was through his early years where he began to question the possibility of art to change. Portrait of a Generation, 2004, JR attempted to change the perception of the inhabitants of a rundown Parisian suburb, Les Bosquets by pasting full-frame portraits of them in the streets of a bourgeoisie area. From 2008 to 2010 JR created work that commented on the plight of the woman in virtually unlivable conditions, yet their resilience and determination to make the most for themselves. These portraits, Women Are Heroes, were located from the mountain-side of favelas in Rio de Janiero, Brazil to the rooftops of the Kibera slum in Kenya. He has also collaborated with numerous talents including Takashi Murakami and The New York City Ballet.
The positive work of JR has far from gone unnoticed. He was the first artist and youngest person ever, aged 27, to win the prestigious TED Prize. “What we see changes who we are. When we act together, the whole thing is much more than the sum of the parts,” he said at his TED talk, where he also launched his game-changing Inside Out Project, encouraging us to participate in his movement.
JR: Can Art Change The World? is an extensive and detailed overview of JR’s work and life. The full colour, hardcover book was written in close collaboration with JR, featuring photographs and previously unseen content of him and his collaborators. Featuring an essay by Nato Thompson, Chief Curator of Creative Time in New York, and an introduction by graphic artist Joseph Remnant, the title is published by Phaidon Books.
This giveaway has now closed.
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