Tuesday, November 12, 2013

JR and the universal aesthetic

"The human face and figure have been of widespread importance in visual art- notwithstanding the Islamic tradition against representing humans, which has often been defied by Muslims, whether artists or those who commission them."

One of the most famous contemporary street artists is a man who calls himself JR.  He is a parisian artist who went from finding an abandoned camera in a Parisian subway to pasting portraits of people all over the world.  I was aware of his projects and thought his concepts extremely intriguing, however I was unfamiliar with the scope and the specifics of his work.  He currently has a show at the Contemporary Art Center downtown, and I encourage anyone to go, but through his work with people and the reactionary aspect of his work, JR utilizes the principle above to draw people together across cultures, time, and space through art.

A project that has relevance to his goal is a project that was called Face2Face.  In this project, JR sought to speak out against the violence and hatred between Palestinians and Israeli people.  In this project JR took portraits of Palestinians and pasted them next to pictures of Israeli's with the same professions, and then he challenged people to try and distinguish which ones were Palestinians and which were Israeli.  What gave this project even more power was that it was illegally pasted on a security wall in Israel and JR put up dozens of portraits without getting caught.

I found this show to speak very specifically on the universal aesthetic and how and what comprises of modern art today.  The link below directs you to JR's sight, and I encourage you to check him out.

http://www.jr-art.net

No comments:

Post a Comment