Conversation with JR
David Alan Harvey: The reason I am interested in you is because you’re a pop star, yet you do good things for people. You have brought art to the streets for everyone to see. You use your photographs to cover up the roofs of substandard housing in Nairobi. Your pictures keep the rain out. You use your art for social causes. We share an enthusiasm for supporting other artists.
So anybody in the arts, whether they are a painter, sculpture, filmmaker, etc., those people have always interested me since I was a kid. And I am always especially interested in, “when did the light come on?”.
Now I sort of know when the light came on for you. There were the riots in Paris, and I was in Arles when you pasted there in 2007. I didn’t know you at that time, and I guess not so many people did.
Since then you have obviously taken off, but when did the spark go off? Obviously you were spraying, you were a graffiti artist.
JR: Yeah, I was pasting even before the riots. I guess the moment when it became clear to myself and to the people that I wanted to be an artist was at the riots because everyone discovered my work through the media. So I did the cover of the New York Times in 2005, but there was not even my name, they didn’t even know who I was. So I am on the cover, walking in front of my pasting, but the caption was something like “a passerby walking in this really tense neighborhood in Paris”. They didn’t know who was doing that. So what happened after the riots is that during the riots all the media emailed me and said ‘look, no journalist can get in. We saw that you have your work in there, can you take photos for us?’ That was the first time that I actually got a job offer as a photographer, but at that moment I decided I would not accept it because I wanted to choose the subject of my photos.
DAH: You wanted to be completely pure with it.
JR: Exactly. That is what put me into the portrait scene.
DAH: Okay well let me back up even further than that. I know you want to be anonymous so you don’t have to be specific, but there must have been an age when you were a little kid, six years old, seven years old, ten years old, that you realized you needed to project your feelings somehow and it goes to graffiti art. What happened? When did the light go off?
JR: I mean I started graffiti really early, maybe twelve or thirteen, but I definitely had no idea that there was a job for being an artist. I really had no clue.
DAH: It was just something you had to do?
JR: Some of the kids were doing it in the neighborhood and it’s so great to have your name up there and then it became a challenge like who’s going to get up there and who’s going to get that one, and who’s going to have more balls. There was nothing like ‘Oh, look how beautiful these are or look at how they change people’…nothing like that. So, it is later on when I got evicted from my school in the suburbs that I had to go live with some cousins in Paris that I met some writers that were in a totally different game. They said ‘your letters are bullshit, we do letters like this’. It is like if you come from the countryside and you think you had it all right and then you get in the city and you meet the real dudes and you start right from the bottom, and those guys actually do crazy letters, and one of the crew I was affiliated with was a really legit one and the leader lived in my suburb, so that’s why they accepted me in Paris. But my writing was terrible.
DAH: Ah, so how old were you when you went to Paris?
JR: I was seventeen.
DAH: Oh so that is a tough time.
JR: Yeah, and so basically, the moment I was in Paris I realized that there was a whole game for it. There were guys who were really good at it, and that is when I was like, oh I am meeting the best dudes, but I am not that great at it, so why don’t I document those guys.
DAH: So you started by just taking pictures of the guys who were rioting?
JR: Yeah. And then printing the photos and re-pasting them in the street. But really small. Really tiny.
DAH: Was it after the pasting in Arles?
JR: No that was 2001. I pasted my first poster when I was seventeen.
DAH: Really? Because you are thirty now right?
JR: Yeah, I’m thirty now. So I started thirteen years ago basically. Now I am working on a secret project that no one knows about.
DAH: I guess we had better keep your “secret project” a secret (laughing)…Save it for the next interview!!
Well let me ask you this…when did you suddenly go from underground, in trouble, getting arrested, obviously the government’s against you, you’re a bad boy, now you’re obviously a good boy and I want to ask you about that too. Is that a problem being a good boy?
You’re a famous pop artist now, is that a contradiction to the original JR?
JR: No, what I love about it is that I can be a good boy in New York and sometimes a good boy in France, but then when I did that I was arrested for that.
DAH: But you are a “good boy” in France now aren’t you?
JR: Yeah but we never got into a position to do that. I tried, even with my name to get the authorization to paste in the building; they wouldn’t give it to me. And so the funny thing is that, even when I was in China, I can have an exhibition in a museum and at the same time have problems with the outside, because for some people this is art and for other’s it’s silly crime, so we are talking about simple posters being a piece of art in a place and….
DAH: And a crime in another place?
JR: Yeah. Most of the places I go I start from scratch again. If I was only in New York, or only in France, I would have that feeling that everything seems easier, but because all those places I travel to, I start back from scratch, from people who don’t know my work or from police, who think: I don’t care who you are.
DAH: What about in Kibera or Cuba?
JR: Kibera we had no authorization. Cuba we had to do it through the Art Biennale but we had to finance everything, the best thing is Berlin for example. You know, I just did a project there and for most of it we actually didn’t get authorization. So we rented a huge crane and we just parked it wherever we wanted to. We know how to pretend we are legit, so if police came and looked at us, we looked really professional.
DAH: Listen, you are out there with the social media, you’re out there, you’re a celebrity, you’re a pop artist in a way, but you still keep the little extra part of original JR in there too. Is this correct?
JR: I have that thing where I am always in the grey zone, basically. That’s where I feel the most comfortable. In a place where you don’t know if it’s legal or illegal. Even Times Square that looks like the most legal thing ever, we didn’t have a paper from the city. They couldn’t give us official authorization saying that they agreed on that since there were insurance problems if people fell, etc. No one would take that responsibility. So basically Times Square Arts said you can go ahead but that everything was on our head because no one in the city would give us a paper covering your ass for what we were going to do.
DAH: I am used to photographers doing big things, but you’re out there on some other planet. I don’t see how you do all that stuff one after another. You take on Times Square and I think “Okay, that’s enough for two years of work and that’s that”. But then the next thing I know you’re in Berlin. How are you doing all that stuff? You have a team obviously…
JR: Well my favorite part is to be out pasting with my team, so we always travel altogether.
DAH: But how do you do all that stuff? You must have a military precision operation thing here. You’re a super organized guy.
JR: It’s a little of both. For example, I don’t drink, I don’t smoke, I sleep well.
DAH: Yeah, I was going to ask you if you ever sleep.
JR: Yes, I need to sleep for hours.
DAH: Do you have a personal life?
JR: I have one, it’s just that I travel a lot. The way I keep a close circle that is trained is that I have the same team that I’ve had for years. Those are the same guys that I did a project with 10 years ago in the suburbs. They are the same guys that I work with. We don’t need to call each other every day. They know which truck we need to rent when I get in a place. I never feel like I am arriving with new people…I am always with my team. We are like a family.
DAH: That I understand. I have some small version of that, but yours is on a huge level. Do you have an advance team who is going and lining all this stuff up?
JR: Sometimes they go to places and check it out before me, but I need to go and validate the walls.
DAH: Are you going yourself and making the deals with the official people or biz people, or is there somebody else?
JR: No, there are some people who do that here in New York, other guys in Berlin, other guys when it’s in France. And also, when I did the project in Rio, I worked with some people from Providencia. Now when I came back to Providencia I knew people there and we all stay very close. So depending on the city, I don’t need to send guys since I already have somebody there that knows how I work. And of course all the volunteers sometimes come and help, which is great. I have some guys who construct stuff and those guys don’t joke. You tell them I want a truck with that thing and that thing and he never calls you back and when you come it’s ready. They are the kind of guys that just make shit happen. There is a lot of this in the team where everybody takes these things personally and it becomes their part. And so we work a lot like that very closely. It’s like if I put a frame, and inside that frame everyone does their part. We have pasting guys who are willing to take risks, and have other who say “call me when you have an exhibition or legal war”, and other guys who I worked with in the suburbs have been in jail so they take the risks, to do their thing knowing that if they get arrested, it is everyone on their own basically because we have no paper, nothing.
DAH: Now I would imagine that you would get financing from various city’s or from various patrons of things.
JR: No, Times Square I financed myself. Paris, same thing.
DAH: You can do that just with your….
JR: The sales of the artwork.
DAH: Really? You do all that with that?
JR: I don’t have time to write forms or grants and no one on the team knows how to do it. Who would maybe be good at it? We don’t know. Most of the stuff we do is on the grey zone.
DAH: How do you get those big prints made in Nairobi?
JR: For example all the vinyl prints on the roof, we actually printed in Nairobi.
DAH: You printed it IN Nairobi?
JR: Yeah, because that is the cheapest way to work. That’s where they do all the banners for West Africa advertising and stuff like that. And now we covered another 4,000 square meters on top of what we did before and we just did it with help of the community. That’s like what you saw in Brazil, just continuity. So every year we come back and cover more.
DAH: And you just pick your social projects…I mean everything you do has some social relevance to it. I mean it may be in protest to something, something that you care about.
JR: The thing is, I am sure most of the people think I have legal authorization from the state when I actually have nothing. It’s like working in the favela. Providencia is the only favela where you cannot do any art projects, especially at the time when I went. There are no NGOs here are no contacts in there. When I went in there, there was just no way I could do it. I just met one woman, and that woman presented me to Mauricio, he was the key to everything. He was the guy who basically explained to every person (because I didn’t speak Portuguese) why I came and what the project was, because those people could do it. They were so good at it, so why wouldn’t it just be their project?
DAH: So then you go out and get your team together and you bring it back?
JR: Yes, exactly.
DAH: Well you are an artist with a sense of social responsibility. You said art was a great place for you to discuss all these social issues in kind of a free form. But you are doing more than a lot of journalistic photographers are doing. You don’t consider yourself that kind of photographer. You are an artist, but still, the issues are exactly the same.
JR: Now, I only understood that this year actually since I started using Instagram, I didn’t have social media a year and a half ago. I realized that if I put up a single photo people would think that was cool, but if I put up a whole story then suddenly people are touched and want to respond to that.
DAH: This is something you are just now realizing?
JR: Yeah, I didn’t understand the power of that before.
DAH: You’ve turned down the job as a journalist twice?
JR: Yeah, but I am not trying to do journalism.
DAH: I know you’re not, but you are making social change, which is what a lot of journalists are trying to do. I mean a lot of documentary photographers. Including me…I go to Kibera and I see the conditions there, and I’m thinking ‘Ok, I will take pictures here and hopefully if I publish it in magazines through Magnum I will effect some social change. Actually you in fact are going in as an artist and putting covers over the roofs so they don’t leak anymore. So that is a real social change, a real powerful and direct effect. So this is something you are realizing more and more. Is this something you are thinking about more and more?
JR: I am thinking about that fact that from the beginning. I realized when I go into this neighborhood and I have no contact there, I realized quickly that I wanted to have a real interaction with the people and as I was always into pasting, I knew I would implicate them, need their help but the thing is, how can that make sense for them? And they are the ones that will decide if it makes sense.
DAH: When you are in Kibera, they are the ones deciding?
JR: Exactly, and Liberia was the same thing. In Liberia there were just two of us and just guys with machetes around asking what the fuck are you guys doing here. You explain to them you want to paste a photo of a woman, and they don’t get it, but they are so curious because you don’t come from an NGO. So they are like ok what do you want to do? And I say we want to paste and they say okay you pay me and you can paste. I say no, I’m not going to rent a space from you. It’s not advertising. I say look, I’m not going to paste it if you tell me not to paste it, but if you tell me to paste it and you don’t like it and you want to scratch it in front of me, that is fine with me. So they ask why then do you even want to do it? I say I do it because it’s art. Basically the guys are so curious they say go ahead and do it, we don’t care. So they look and then when you try to do it, and remember that broken bridge, it was so hard because the bridge was broken, that they help you ended up having child soldiers helping to paste a woman that they may have raped during the conflict. But this would only happen to through that whole thing of you as an artist and trying to come into someplace and trying something with no insurance that you can actually do it. So when I travel, there is always a risk that I am going to be stopped before I even start, and that is the risk that most other people who travel don’t want to have. They don’t want to go there for nothing. All of those places that I went to, I had always in mind that there was a great percentage of chance that it wasn’t going to happen. Even in the favela, because I don’t have a paper.
DAH: Yeah, well you are in another world when you are in Kibera or in the favela. Okay, one last question because I know you have to go, your long term goal… you are going at such an incredible pace, you are 30 years old and you have already established a good solid 10 years of credibility already as an artist, so describe yourself right now.
I mean I’ve seen different descriptions that you’ve given, but right this minute, right now, how do you see yourself in the future? Street artist? Photographer? Same thing or more?
JR: I don’t think I’m a street artist anymore or photographer. I think I use those tools everyday. I love the artist title because you can do anything. I don’t have a direct goal or direct mission, except that if I fail tomorrow I want to fail inside my field. I don’t want to sell out basically. So I put those codes in since the beginning and I always did every one of my projects inside those codes that I fixed to myself, and I just wish that in the future, if I stop or if I fail that will be the best thing for me to have stayed true.
DAH: That’s a great message for emerging photographers. That’s the best thing. If you screw up, at least you did it.
JR: And as an artist you have the same rules to actually enter into rich homes in Copacabana and into the slums in Kibera. You have them so to do the same thing with your life. This building I live in I don’t pay rent, and it is beautiful, but if tomorrow I am back into a really small apartment, basically, I wouldn’t see that as failure. As you go and live to the complete extreme, you’d better be ready for it. So, of course I love my NYC studio, but if tomorrow I don’t have it anymore, I know that’s not failure. I don’t care, as long as I can express myself. When I was doing it 10 years ago, I didn’t feel that it was failure to just work in my little room and print my little photos. So I’m fine to go back to that, it wouldn’t be a failure.
DAH: I always felt the same way. Ready to go back to the street anytime. Anything but sell out.
JR: Exactly. It’s like people are so afraid to lose things, and so by being afraid to lose everything, they will do whatever. For example they will print the same thing over and over because it sells. I don’t care. Inside Out was the example. Two years ago I decided to give my techniques away. This is how you print and this is how you glue it. I am going to print for you and I am even going to pay for you if you want…all these people were like ‘wait, but if you give your techniques away, what’s left? Keep your copyrights’. I said ‘no I am going to give everything away I don’t care’. This has helped me more than has taken me down. Of course I have spent a lot of money in it, but I love the interaction. I meet so many people. I wouldn’t change that for anything. So, I think that all this is just a step that I am taking in the blind, and then I just react to it. And that is my way of working everyday. I am not planning stuff three years ahead. I know what I am going to do just this year, and after that I don’t know.
DAH: Inspiration for all. Thanks for your time JR. Great stuff….
Related links
Photograph of JR in his studio in New York by David Alan Harvey.
Good read!
Really surprised how much he finances himself…and the time square project with no real “go ahead”!
Thanks for this conversation David.
@ DAH!! Finally!! Gracias, infinitas!
P.
…I know that’s not failure. I don’t care, as long as I can express myself…
Powerful phrase, it resume this conversation.
Just goes to show- Less is More, and you don’t need a bunch of shit to make an impact.
<3! :))
that should be I <3 Jr! (i heart JR), guess the coding doesnt translate here…
ok, i love jr, what he does and stands for…period :)
terrific interview too..
thanks david!, thanks JR!
Two years ago I decided to give my techniques away. This is how you print and this is how you glue it. I am going to print for you and I am even going to pay for you if you want…all these people were like ‘wait, but if you give your techniques away, what’s left? Keep your copyrights’. I said ‘no I am going to give everything away I don’t care’. This has helped me more than has taken me down. Of course I have spent a lot of money in it, but I love the interaction.
Then there is this path as ……… http://www.christian-boltanski.com/
Pingback: Im Himmel - Leica User Forum
JR jas truly done great stuff and broken new ground… thanks for the interview.
Yes, Authentic artist.
Thank you for interview.
Welcome home JR !!!
KYUNGHEE LEE
i am on my way to Korea right after my upcoming Mexico jaunt…even shooting on Busan….i do hope we meet….
hugs, david
As far as I’m concerned this is the best bedtime Burn interview ever.
Sorry I don’t know where the iPad got the word bedtime from!
So once again…
This is as far as I’m concerned the best Burn interview ever.
Actually I’m surprised so few have commented on this interview. I found it highly inspiring.
Great interview, brilliant artist. I’ve also been inspired by the similar, though site-specific, work of Indian Health Service Dr. Chip Thomas on the Navajo Reservation. I stood outside my office yesterday looking at the 16′ by 100′ blank white wall on our building. And then I walked inside to stare at the half-ton roll of newsprint in the back room. Inspired. And that’s the point. Thanks JR, no doubt you are changing lives everyday in big and small ways.
Wow!
David,welcome to Busan!!!
Please give me your time-schedules and accommodation of Korea trip.
If you need any help for this trip, please let me know.
My e-mail : kyungheekorea@gmail.com
We should meet :)))
Hugs, Kyunghee
This interview really drills down. Superb.
Paul… this is one of the nightmares of the digital age – programs that misinterpret your words. Yours is one of the funniest misinterpretations I have seen…
Pingback: PJL: October 2013 (Part 1) - LightBox
PAUL
we at Burn are very surprised also that so few from this audience seemed particularly interested in JR…i am not sure what this says….disappointing for sure….
I am not too surprised, wrong audience. The visual arts kids I teach seem to understand what he is on about but the photography students are a bit so so about him. Other than that I do have a nice case study about Blek le Rat, JR, Christian Boltanski and Bansky ………. then there is no interest here about that aspect of photography so I will leave it at that
Lines, Marks, and Drawings., through the Lens of Roger Ballen is a worthwhile read for those that are interested plus before I forget one should check out JRs printing processes ……….
David, I think part of the problem is one of things so many of us here have come to love – Instagram. It is great fun to scroll through the many Instagram posts that appear each day, to click “like” here and there and to drop in comments when moved to do so, but it also takes time and energy. This leaves less time and energy to give a good read to a solid interview on Burn and to followup with a worthwhile, though out, comment.
It seems that every grand solution and step forward the internet brings us also brings great setbacks to our interaction with other things we already know and love. For example, I used to love sitting down on the couch with my expensive subscription to Aperture and some other photographic periodicals, but after I found Burn I let almost all of them expire.
I had been a little dismayed for awhile at the fall off in comments Burn has experienced in recents months, but it was only after I got on to Instagram that I began to understand why. The interesting thing is, within Instagram is a micro-community of Burnians, first brought together by you and ever loyal to you and Burn, even though the energy of this community is now further dissipated through another social network and the visible presence of many community members on Burn lessened.
Frostfrog…
I think you’re absolutely right about Instagram and the micro community of loyal Burn fans. I really really miss the inspiring, thoughtful and fun dialogues we used to share here on a Burn in 2010, 2011 and 2012. Funnily enough I’m absolutely certain many Burn commentators are very just quietly sitting back and reading posts and comments in silence.
Perhaps it’s time we had some very provocative essay published here, which will be both hated by some and adored by others…
Sounds like someone here is suffering from new toy syndrome……
Well, often the best photo essays here receive the fewest comments, so …
Personally, I find this kind of work incredibly inspiring, pure, impactful and best of all (and most important of all), subversive in all the right ways. There is so much to love about it – it’s inclusive, it’s a movement, it’s often illegal, it’s at street level, totally, totally independent and it has shit to say. It is taking street art to a higher form. And BURN, with its commitment to keep corporatism and advertising out of the mix here, is the perfect venue for the interview.
I admit, I’m disappointed that I’ve never been arrested for art.
Imants, I knew you would come up with a comment of this nature and was curious to see just how you would phrase it.
Yes, true, but not just “someone,” but rather a whole slew of Burnians, including the founder, master and lead Burnian himself.
Paul, I suspect such essays wait in the wings, but I also think there has been some provocative essays of late that in the past days you speak of would have generated the kind of dialogue you recall. I think there has been a technology-driven shift in photographic pysche, perhaps a certain large scale fatigue as we swim through this swiftly moving river of cascade of great images, good, mediocre and pour, multiplying in endless number and venue, flow side by side all around us.
interest waned long before the insta push……. people just move on and gravitate elsewhere
Except you and me, Imants. We stay through thick and thin… along with some others visible and, as Paul speculates, I believe, many more unseen.
Now, don’t go running off just to prove me wrong…
Even my postings are irregular of late……..
LOL, Imants… You cause me to chuckle and smile… Thank you…
IMANTS
you are probably right…wrong audience…..yet you might imagine that even the “wrong audience” would have something to say…either pro or con…..interesting…JR as he describes only uses photography as one tool…he is an event maker, a pop artist, a celebrity…interesting that now in New York the anonymous artist Banksy has showed up to do some work in the Bronx….those two are opposites…
FROSTFROG
the commentators here have never represented the bulk of the actual reading audience….we get contributions and subscriptions for example from people whose name is never seen in comments….and the number of readers here is up from the days of highest commentator participation…so number of readers is not reflected by the number of commentators….
i think that most people come here to Burn from Facebook….they are on FB anyway, and click over to the Burn page to see if there is a story they like…oftentimes they leave their comments on the Burn FB page…and/or Instagram…
YOUNG TOM HYDE
you are quite correct…the best essays most often receive the fewest comments….and i am sure you well remember when we were getting Burn going one of the big discussions was whether we should even have comments at all…do you remember that? there was a very large contingency of those who absolutely thought a comments aspect was the wrong way to go….in any case, comments have no affect one way or another on our readership base….
HOWEVER, i like seeing all of you here!!
cheers, david
David I do wonder that at times people feel threatened by the le rats, JRs etc of the world, they are not sure if these artists are playing the con game or ……….
……..Yes Bansky did well
Unsuspecting tourists who thought they were buying cheap Banksy knock-offs have scored the bargain of a lifetime after the elusive street artist revealed the paintings were really his.
Banksy used an anonymous old man to sell several of his original works for $US60 ($63.60) from a stall in New York’s Central Park on Sunday. The paintings are actually worth about $42,400 each.
It took hours for the man to make his first sale, no doubt because everyone thought he was selling counterfeits.
His first customer was a woman who bought two small canvases for her children – but only after haggling him down to a half-price discount . Banksy – a pseudonym for the world-famous English graffiti artist whose identity is unknown – revealed the ruse on his website.
‘‘ Yesterday I set up a stall in the park selling 100 per cent authentic original signed Banksy canvases. For $60 each,’’ he wrote. ‘‘ Please note: This was a one-off . The stall will not be there again today.’’
He also posted a 2 1/2 minute video to show how the day unfolded . For the first few hours, the man sat around as people walked past the three dozen or so paintings – which could have a combined estimated value of up to $1.59 million . The black-and-white paintings were simply marked ‘‘ SPRAY ART’ ’ with another sign that said ‘‘ $60’’ .
Just before 11.15am, a woman is seen looking at a painting. She decides not to buy it and walks off. Streams of people walk past until the man makes his first sale at 3.30pm. At 4pm, a woman from New Zealand buys two paintings. She shakes the man’s hand but he seals the deal by kissing her cheek.
At 5.30pm, a Chicago man tells the vendor he is decorating his new house, explaining, ‘‘ I just need something for the walls.’’ He buys four paintings with a potential combined value of $227,529 for a mere $254. The old man says goodbye by giving him a hug.
At 6pm, the man packs up his stall and leaves. The total takings were $445, despite the sold art being worth up to $339,200.
Last week, media outlets reported they may have photographed the elusive artist, who is currently hosting a ‘‘ live exhibition’’ .
Copyright © 2013 The Sydney Morning Herald
Another reason maybe why there hasn’t been much activity on the JR interview is because of the RoadTrips image with David taking JR’s portrait. There were quite a few comments on that post which I’m sure would of appeared here…
I still don’t buy into the idea that the best essays get the fewest comments. Rather, I’d posit that the most mainstream essays get the fewest comments. It all makes sense in that context. Published essays have become increasingly mainstream. Most essayists have some kind of M.F.A.-like degree in photography and have similar publishing histories in mainstream outlets. So it makes sense that readership would be up and comments down.
Beyond that though, I agree the Facebooks and Instagrams have something to do with it. Why bother conveying complex ideas through writing when you can just hit the “Like” button. And isn’t there a feel good effect to getting likes that for most is much better than any negativity or constructive criticism in a comment?
Regarding JR, I thought there was a post and a lot of discussion about him awhile back? Did I just dream it? Again, I find his work and ideas visually compelling and interesting on a lot of levels and especially appreciate how it relates to the various communities in which it appears. But after appreciating it for what it is, I find myself starting to wonder about the financing. It’s obviously a big business with world capital studios and a team that routinely flies all over the world implementing expensive projects. I wonder where does the money come from? And not just JR, it seems like a lot of photographers spend a lot more money on projects than they are likely to be paid. Do they all have trust funds? If so, are the arts and journalism, particularly photography, becoming limited to those who inherit great wealth? Or at some level do museums and wealthy patrons of the arts step in and make New York studios and grand projects in the slums of the world possible? Those are rhetorical question for the wind, or at least general questions for the audience, as I am not so crass as to actually ask JR about his finances. Although I see his work as an example of the disconnect between the arts and the less wealthy, I admire it because it recognizes that disconnect and addresses it.
Finally, I really enjoyed Banksy’s park stunt which I think also showed an important aspect of the disconnect between the art world and most people’s realities. On one hand, thousands of regular people looked at those paintings and didn’t even bother to inquire about the price, much less pay $60. And that probably included more than a few wealthy art patron types who would have happily paid $60,000 for a Banksy no matter what it looked like, as long as someone saw them do it. I have a lot more to say about it, but it’s not worth the effort. It would be so much easier if there were just a Like button I could click.
And maybe that’s the answer for burn and the comments problem (if there is such a thing). Just add a Like button!
(please don’t)
MW
in the interview above i asked JR how he financed everything…he told us…he lives for free in Paris and New York…donated apartments….he has dozens and dozens of volunteers….he also said he has the same 10 guys as his “base” ..the same ones who have been with him all along…he also says he finances it all with sales of his art work…so, i think his answer is quite clear…..
for sure there are a lot of famous photographers and painters and i suspect many other types of artist who come from wealthy families….HCB certainly never had to look for “work” nor do many whose names you well know..i think you just be either very wealthy OR living on the edges….the middle ground really kills art…so be very rich or very poor…those work!!
i wonder if Banksy came to New York right now as a sort of artistic rapper style “battle” with JR….they are both opposites….Banksy OWNS the anonymous label for real…JR seeks the fame….maybe they are “friends” but i kinda doubt it…
yea, we should just get a “like” button ha ha….hey amigo, i just saw on skype you left a link for me months ago…i just saw it by accident today…skype a bad place to leave me a message or pictures i am not expecting….anyway, “liked” your carnaval work….join me for a coffee or whatever over the weekend in new york if you are in town…..
cheers, david
Forgot about the Skype myself. Didn’t require a reply. Know you like the Carnival. Here’s the finished work from this year, which will be my last year shooting it as I’m just repeating myself. The Jouvay is a great event though. You should go some labor day when you’re in town.
I’ll be out and about this weekend. Let me know when’s a good time for a coffee, or whatever.
Don’t really see a lot of art from the really poor. Wealthy kids choosing to live on the edge, sure. Though come to think about it, my most valuable piece of art came from the really poor. Once upon a time I gave a ride to an old man on some back road in Niger and he forgot his hatchet in my truck. It’s a real tool but the handle is carved with intricate patterns. That’s what I like about Banksy’s NY stunts. He’s bringing that kind of art world vs real world dichotomy to people’s attention.
David :)) I remember well. Up on comments, down on ads. No regrets.
maybe, we ,BURNIANS are so overwhelmed by the vision of some of our guests that we are gobsmacked (sometimes)…hihiii
IMO
oh,well,IMF is calling…I shouldn’t have ouzo with bread…
bravo to BURNIANS and BUNKSY and JR and WARHOL and WRIGHT Brothers…sky is not the limit!!!
Absolutely inspired by both photographers. DAH and JR. Makes me want to dig deeper and let go of a lot of the bullshit restrictions I seem to put on myself. Bravo!
YOUNG TOM HYDE…
exactly….we were right the first time…again, many thanks for all of your input over the years…and i would LOVE to get some copies of your newspaper…can you send some?
ANNETTE
we always put way more restrictions on ourselves than others put on us…an odd phenomena…let me know if you get to New York….remembering great times with you in Miami…..love that house!!!
cheers, david
Thanks so much, David, for choosing to interview JR. I’ve been following him on Instagram and have been intrigued. This fellow is not only bringing art to the people, he is providing them a means to become artists themselves. And his photos are fabulous. It’s good to have more of an idea of who he is and why he does what he does. JR is the real deal for sure.
Michael, I agree: definitely no “Like” button, please! I feel commenting here is much like making photographs – hard work, with a likelihood of failure…and the odd diamond to be tossed or found. It’s about putting yourself out there naked, be it an essay, book, or just being on the street. It’s about discovering who you are through the self-expression of creativity. I have warm feelings toward the people who comment here, ’cause I think they are travelling the same path; finding themselves, and sharing it. To this, I’m close.
About JR: I have great respect for his intentions and how he helped the people in the vicinities of his installations. How cool is it that photography can prevent the roof from leaking? It’s a rare thing for art to have an immediate effect on social change, and JR seems to have done it.
As I mentioned previously (you weren’t dreaming), I encountered JR’s work immediately outside of the Pompidou Museum 6 years ago. More precisely, his photos were plastered three stories tall on a building next to the mechanical sculpture pool of the Pompidou. I thought about Andre Malraux’s idea of a museum without walls at first; JR had taken it a step further – a museum outside a museum without walls.
Malraux realized with the advent of the Art book that the elitism of art would become a broken model. Art would no longer be available just to museum goers (who lived nearby, or could afford to travel to the museums); the judgement of what was good in art would no longer be dictated by the curators. Taste was democratized, as more people had the opportunity to see artworks in print. They were able to have a say in the matter, without even having entered a museum! The funny offshoot of all this was that the artist became an object of curiosity; it’s difficult to tell if a museum-goer wants to see Mona Lisa, or a Da Vinci, for instance.
Bringing it back to JR, and the secondary thread of discussion here – the absence of comments under his interview – it strikes me that one of the ideas behind the notion of the anonymous artist is a direct heir to Malraux’s prediction. Art has become so readily available through the internet, and the biographies of the artists too, that it has become easier to press a like button than to make comment or do research. It has become easy to buy-in to the mystery of the anonymous artist like JR or Banksy, or Prince, who was formally known briefly as…well, whatever that symbol was. It’s a carefully crafted public image of shadow-lurker that has Like button pushers all agog, wet with the romanticized idea of the anarchic artist. No understanding is really necessary anymore; our appreciation can be expressed with a push of a button.