Summarize this content to 2000 words in 6 paragraphs in Arabic French street artist JR is everywhere and nowhere. Describing himself as a “photograffeur” (photographer and graffiti artist), he orchestrates spectacular public installations, often supersizing the faces of everyday people and flyposting them in locations marked by violence. These have included a curious toddler peering over the Mexico-US border fence, women’s eyes gazing out of a favela in Rio de Janeiro and incarcerated figures looking upwards from the central yard of a high-security prison in California. His Instagram account, where the 42-year old artist often speaks affably to camera in his trademark sunglasses and pork pie hat (“What’s up, everyone?”), has 1.8mn followers.On the art market though, JR — so-called from the initials of his name, Jean René — remains relatively underground. His all-time auction sales number about 750 works compared with Banksy’s 8,000-plus, according to the Artnet database, while his public record price stands at the equivalent of €101,400, for a work mounted on corrugated metal based on his Women Are Heroes series, 10 times lower than the records of other in-demand contemporary artists. But JR’s presence will be felt in London this week when French mega-dealer Emmanuel Perrotin opens a new gallery in London — located in Claridge’s hotel — with a solo show of recent and new studio works. “He is very popular, and we love to have as many visitors as possible in the gallery,” Perrotin says. He recalls that the opening day of his first show with the artist, in Paris in 2011, had thousands of visitors — incentivised too by British band Massive Attack, who were playing in the gallery courtyard.Like many, Perrotin first came across the artist’s work by accident. “I was on a highway in Shanghai and saw the face of an old woman on a water tower [“The Wrinkles of the City”, in 2010].” JR took some persuasion to be represented by a big-name commercial gallery, Perrotin says. “It wasn’t what he thought he wanted — he thinks the world is his gallery. But we had a lot of interests in common. Also, I say what I think, so he took me seriously.” The rest of the art world’s inner circle was less convinced. “They were suspicious, because he was so popular, which often happens. But with JR, as with others, something changes, I never know what, and people then decide that an artist is part of their community rather than in the twilight zone,” Perrotin says. The transformation has been marked. “He started out as a ragamuffin with something to say,” says Steve Lazarides, a former gallerist who hosted shows by JR in London earlier in the artist’s career. JR began by taking photographs of fellow graffiti artists on the outskirts of Paris and was seemingly fearless when it came to clambering up buildings or into tunnels. He then posted photocopies of his snaps on the street, framed with spray paint. JR remains “very close to the [street] scene,” Perrotin says, though has earned himself some starry friends along the way. These include Robert De Niro, with whom JR recently made a film. Lauren Panzo, vice-president of Pace gallery, which has represented JR since 2018, describes his art today as “activism, storytelling and spectacle all at once — a powerful reminder of the impact images can have in shaping our world”.Solo museum shows have been held at the Brooklyn Museum, SFMoma in San Francisco and London’s Saatchi Gallery, but JR needs the market, using the money made from sales of studio works to fund his public projects. The numbers don’t obviously stack up. The artist refuses any brand collaborations or corporate partnerships while “his prices are reasonable and then you add in productions costs and so on. The gallery makes an effort,” Perrotin says. He notes that JR “has a capacity to make people do things, to get them to help”, including the fundamental support of local communities who get each project off the ground, even when not legally sanctioned. Lazarides says that key to JR’s appeal — to communities and collectors — “is that he often shows people smiling or playing, rather than voyeuristically staging them as victims”.There will be 15 works on view in the Claridge’s space this week. These come from two series: Children of Ouranos, based on photographs of children playing in refugee camps around the world, and the Déplacé.e.s project, begun in 2022 and for which the artist, with the help of locals, unfurls a 120ft banner with an image of a refugee. This has had outings in countries including Ukraine, Rwanda and Colombia, and the works on show are mounted aerial photographs of such scenes. For Children of Ouranos, JR transfers negatives on to wood, then reinforces the colour contrast with black ink — effects that render the children as spiritual apparitions. Most pieces are unique, with prices ranging from €36,000 to €88,000.Panzo says that both photography (which tends to sell for less than paintings) and “his work being rooted in long-term social engagement and public participation” likely put a ceiling on prices for JR’s work, while Perrotin says that the relative paucity of works at auction is an indication of his loyal collector-base. Buyers have included the late actor Robin Williams, who bought a photograph from JR’s 2007 Face2Face project, which pasted portraits on the Separation Wall in Bethlehem of Israelis and Palestinians doing the same jobs. Williams’s photo, which shows three nuns helping to mount an image of a laughing clergyman, was sold in 2018 for $60,000, part of a charitable auction of Robin and Marsha Williams’s collection.Perrotin explains that the commercial works are more than documentary recordings of the main events, with photographs and films very much a part of each project, sometimes the end goal. “JR’s work on the street is spectacular, but just for a short moment. It’s ephemeral. His gallery practice is what stays.”March 14-May 3, perrotin.comFind out about our latest stories first — follow FT Weekend on Instagram and X, and sign up to receive the FT Weekend newsletter every Saturday morning
