This book showcases the most important work by celebrated street artist and activist JR—the award-winning global street-art project he has been working on for the last six years, involving a quarter of a million people. Artist and activist JR exhibits freely in the streets of the world, catching the attention of people who are not typical museum visitors. Known for plastering cities with huge black-and-white wheatpaste photographic portraits of the people who live there, JR won a $1 millian TED Prize in 2011 with his “TED Wish”: to create a large-scale participatory art project that transforms messages of personal identity into pieces of artistic work by making digitally uploaded images into posters to display in diverse communities. To accomplish this, JR has visited cities on nearly every continent. Since the project’s inception, approximately 200,000 people have contributed their portraits. From the suburbs of Paris to Israel and Palestine, and from the villages of Kenya to the favelas of Brazil, his art is inextricably linked with activism: his art advocates for universal women’s rights, peace and equality, and maintaining an idealism about humanity. Inside Out captures the scope of his vision and his innovative model for creating a global art. Packed with hundreds of images from the project, it includes contributions about how JR’s art functions as a worldwide platform for social change, where people either participate in an existing campaign or launch a new action in their own community. Inside Out is a never-before-seen look at the work that is nearest and dearest to the artist’s heart and is sure to appeal not only to JR fans but also to fans of public art and street art.
