JR Everyday People

Let me make an image that would describe [a feeling] without struggling with the words.

- Evan Pricco

” Midway through our tour of his massive retrospective, JR: Chronicles, at the Brooklyn Museum, JR quietly voiced what his entire body of work captures. In his heart, he is a storyteller, one who has traversed the world creating portraits permeated with feeling that cannot be described in words. They are feelings, and somehow, whether celebrity or random person on the street, the subject of JR’s camera sheds inhibitions, prejudices and even social class. They are, and this isn’t too far of a poetic reach, they are just themselves.

JR has spent almost two decades working with… people. He explores ways in which the photograph can be used to eliminate hierarchies, challenge our perceptions of space and place, and use the power of community-building to develop a universal language aimed at achieving a better understanding of surrounding points of view. The people we don’t speak to, that we have, for political or social reasons, perceived with a skewed and potentially harmful stereotype. From his first works in the neighborhoods in outer Paris, to his recent video murals encompassing entire cities, JR aims to find a real story that can help us better comprehend our world.

Since we last spoke, JR has become an academy award-nominated filmmaker, worked with Robert De Niro on a short film, hung out with presidents and built an installation at the Louvre (full disclosure, JR even got this writer to wheatpaste with him in Paris for this project). But that ethos never changed: what are our stories and how can we collectively tell them?

Ever charismatic, JR walked me through his exhibition with the energy of someone telling the story of his work for the first time. At only 36, he is a wise sage, but one who never takes his access to both celebrities and our city streets for granted. In many ways, this is our collective history, one that JR treasures and preserves.