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French photograffeur JR has transformed one of Rio’s favelas with gigantic eyes

Words: Guy Bingley

People tend to remember your name when you’re 325 feet tall. But only if you reveal it.

The Parisian artist who pasted a massive photograph onto the Tate Modern this summer keeps his personal details private. He is known simply as “JR”. He recently confessed to being 25 years old, but he won’t tell us much else.

He has at least two good reasons. His black and white industrialized photocopies are usually illegal, for one. He caused controversy in June by fly posting the side of a listed building in Bloomsbury. Local conservationists didn’t believe he had permission, asking “Where does art stop and advertising start?”

And that’s reason number two for staying nameless. His photographs are a form of advertising. They have to compete with the “jumble of commercial images or signs or billboards” to get noticed. But he is not promoting himself. He promotes forgotten faces, and the suffering lost in the hard money grind of the city.

In Rio’s oldest favela, Morro da Providência, women are widowed by drug wars and police brutality. His latest project, '28 Millimetres: WOMEN', reveals the victims’ humanity through immense portraits pasted to steps, walls and homes. There couldn’t be a bigger advert for confronting a problem eye-to-eye.

“I am not an artist with a cause but an artist who causes people to think.” And JR’s been doing that all over the world. In 2005, he decided to shoot portraits of Palestinians and Israelis along the dividing lines and “post them face to face, in huge formats, in unavoidable places.”

Confrontation is inevitable. But JR won’t take it lying down. He’ll be standing tall. You can get up close and personal with his photograffs at the Lazarides Gallery until 14 November.

28 Millimetres: WOMEN
until 14th November
Lazarides Gallery
lazinc.com