JR at the Olympics
Street artist JR’s giant installations celebrate Olympic hopefuls
The French artist JR’s eye-catching black-and-white photographs, posted as street art throughout the world, took on a monumental dimension last August. Chosen as one of three “artists in residence” at the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro—the other two were German graphic novelist Tilman Spengler and American digital artist Gerald Andal—JR was given his largest budget to date (he says) to create massive installations in three different Rio neighborhoods, as well as plastering the city’s walls with photographs taken in his “Inside Out” photo-booth truck. JR is a local hero in Rio, having launched his “Women Are Heroes” project in the city’s favelas in 2008, and established Casa Amerela, a favela cultural center that he is currently crowning with a silver crescent moon. The athletes he celebrates in the huge installations he built did not qualify to compete at the Olympics but are still “working hard for the passion of sport,” JR says. And that’s the kind of triumph this street artist respects the most.
