world gallery

JR is a French artist who exhibits his work in what he describes as "the biggest art gallery in the world", the urban landscape.

The highly private artist mounts enormous black-and-white photos, often without official permission, on to buildings in some of the world's biggest cities.

JR wins Technology, Entertainment, Design (TED) prize ($100,000) for his exhibition “Women Are Heroes” which has been shown on slum housing in Paris, bridges in Africa and the walls of favelas in Brazil.

Here, a favela in Rio de Janeiro is transformed by dozens of images.








His "Face to Face" project in 2007 saw dozens of images of Israelis and Palestinians plastered onto both sides of the Israeli West Bank barrier, and at various other nearby locations.


The project has been described as "the largest unauthorised art exhibition in the world".




In this Kenyan slum, his photographs were printed on waterproof vinyl and doubled up as makeshift roofs.


















The elderly residents of Shanghai were the subject of JR's latest project, "The Wrinkles of the City".


The artist links the lines and wrinkles on the residents' faces with the transformation of their city.