Synopses & Reviews
The Wrinkles of the City is a world scale project. JR starts by doing portraits of elderly people who represent the memory of the city he picks for its interesting past. He then interviews each subject, as they are the witnesses to the changes their city has gone through. Then, these portraits, printed in monumental sizes, are pasted in the very same city in various places that inspire JR as well as represent the city's heritage. In 2010 JR took his Wrinkles of the City project to Shanghai, where the last century has been full of ups and downs: from the Japanese occupation, the establishment of the Communist Party, the Liberation, World War II, the end of the foreign concessions, the victory of Mao Zedong over the General Tchang Ka -Chek's troops, the Cultural Revolution, the Great Leap Forward to the actual development of the city...The book documents the French artists' work in 2010 photographing Shanghai's elderly inhabitants, plastering their portraits on the city streets and buildings, and finally, recounting their personal memories and views on society. Essentially, the book offers a glimpse of the city's history over the last century, notable especially due to the significant changes it has experienced, from wars and revolutions to economic development and modernization. An important account that links the past with future generations, told in an artistic, poetic, social, and above all, human way.
Synopsis
JR takes on another city in his renowned global project: The Wrinkles of the City. This time, the French photographer has chosen to focus on the citizens of Shanghai and how they have grown as their city has changed around them. The elderly share their story of how they have watched their city suffer and become scarred through cultural, political and economic change. Now the withered faces of his subjects scar the walls of the city as JR stunningly fuses public art and portraiture. These people represent the memory of their city and act as the missing link between older and newer generations. One such citizen, Li Lei, writes a message to JR at the start of the book, JR, When you paste monumental photographs in the streets, you paste in a community, and the meaning of these images is not your personal thing, because their significance goes beyond what meets the eye. The observer meets reality and is forced to reflect. The 2011 TED prize winner, born in 1983, started off as a graffiti artist but turned to photography after finding a camera in a Paris metro station. Since then he has gone on to undertake a variety of projects using the side of buildings and other structures as his gallery. Heading back to his native country earlier this year, the artist chose to cover the famous Louvre Pyramid in one of his black and white photographs. The photographer recently also turned his own talents to directing the short film ELLIS . The narrative, starring Robert de Niro, centers around JR s own unframed art on Ellis Island and the forgotten story of the immigrants who built America."