PORTRAITS for the PEOPLE

An eminent critic and a boundary-breaking artist convene for a rare tête-à-tête-and demonstrate that sometimes the most powerful insiders enter from the outside

- SHIRA TARRANT

“Ready…one, two, three!”

It’s 4:30 p.m. on a Thursday, and JR and Jerry Saltz are jumping. The French artist and the Pulitzer Prize–winning art critic bend their knees and bounce, striking a running-man pose mid-flight. Behind them is The Chronicles of New York City, a 32-foot-wide, 21-foot-tall black-and-white mural featuring 1,128 New Yorkers of every age and ilk, from movie stars to cops. JR spent a year photographing and interviewing each of them before digitally collaging their portraits into a single, sweeping New York cityscape.

Click-click-click-click. A camera flashes, and their landing thuds echo through the Brooklyn Museum’s Great Hall.

“Exactly,” JR nods approvingly.

“Wait—I have moobs!” exclaims Saltz, clutching his chest in mock distress. Laughter erupts from the smattering of people on Playboy’s makeshift set.

Today marks the first time the two men have met, but they have much in common. In addition to being New Yorkers, both are self-taught outsiders — Saltz was a truck driver until the age of 41, and JR usually prefers open spaces to white walls — who have become powerful insiders by insisting that art is for everyone, not just the people who flock to museums and auctions.