RIO DE JANEIRO.- Galeria Nara Roesler announced the representation of acclaimed French artist JR. This announcement coincides with his first solo exhibition in Brazil, Patamar, at Galeria Nara Roesler | Rio de Janeiro.

Widely known for his large-scale photographic interventions in the urban context, JR has exhibited his projects on building facades in the French banlieues, on walls in the Middle East, on bridges and trains in Africa and in Brazilian favelas. He has a longstanding relationship with Brazil, having exhibited in the 2016 Rio Olympics, besides being the founder and director of Casa Amarela, a social project which offers cultural activities to Morro da Providência residents in Rio de Janeiro. The project celebrates its tenth anniversary this year. According to the artist, "art changes people's perception - in a way, it is a manner to change the world (...) It might happen only for an instant, but an instant many times can last much longer than we imagine."

JR's work displaces and puts into question subjectivities that are usually relegated to the margins, subverting the obliteration of the common subjects, bringing them from society's fringes to a level of visibility which, because of its dimension and dislocation, cannot be ignored. JR's production frequently enables the creation of interpersonal connections, giving people in places of conflict or in situations of social vulnerability, the possibility to figure in his large-scale photographic prints. But JR's work is not only dedicated to this context and includes objects, installations, lithographies, and fine art prints, amongst other techniques. His Inside Out project, a mobile photo booth inside a truck, has already photographed over 160 thousand people all over the world. Without any restrictions, from celebrities to the passerby, all are welcome to create their prints.

“We are incredibly excited about JR’s representation. He is an artist whose works deal with essential subjects today, speaking to people from the most varied backgrounds. His works are strongly poetical while offering fresh perspectives to widely familiar themes in visual arts, such as portraiture, or while transgressing the rules of what is considered street art, in opposition to what kinds of artworks one expects to see in an art gallery. For us, it makes a lot of sense to bring such an aggregating artist to Brazilian audiences right now.” – Nara Roesler