JR awarded TED Prize

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A French street artist known as JR has been awarded the 2011 TED Prize. The $100,000 prize rewards an artist known for plastering huge black-and-white photos of ordinary people in some of the world’s worst slums. JR has done his photo work in Brazilian favelas, Kenyan shantytowns and most recently Chinese neighborhoods slated for demolition. Download MP3

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• JR’s Website featuring photos and videos
• TED Prize announcement
• NY Times: Award to Artist Who Gives Slums a Human Face
• BBC Audio slideshow: Faces of the favelas

Read the Transcript
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LISA MULLINS: I’m Lisa Mullins and this is The World. A French street artist known as JR has been awarded the next TED Prize. The award is handed out every year by the non-profit TED group, which calls itself committed to “ideas worth spreading.” The winner receives $100,000, and support for a project of their choosing. Past winners have ranged from former president Bill Clinton to TV chef Jamie Oliver. This time around, the prize is rewarding an artist known for plastering huge black-and-white photos of ordinary people, in urban areas. The artist is named JR. He’s done this in Brazilian slums, in Kenyan shantytowns, and in the West Bank and Israel. Right now, he’s in Shanghai, pasting enormous photos in neighborhoods slated for demolition. JR, who uses only his initial and always wears sunglasses, says he conceals his full identity to keep his focus on his work.

JR:  My whole work is to highlight people and situations around the world. I always stay behind JR so that nobody will recognize me in the street. I could still do my work, still travel. First I started doing it because of graffiti, because [INDISCERNIBLE] of the places where I go around the world it’s illegal. I get arrested or evicted. Even yesterday, the day I got the prize, I was stopped in China when I was doing my work.

MULLINS:  Now that’s interesting. So, let’s talk about the work that you do and when you’re being exhibited as you are now in China, in the Shanghai art museum, obviously this is all above board. But, as you say, sometimes you’re posting things illegally. I guess that’s where, maybe for you, the kind of graffiti artist comes in.

JR: Exactly.

MULLINS: So where would you post something illegally?

JR: So, Shanghai right now represents both things. In the city, I’m doing everything illegally. And so yesterday we’ve been stopped by the police. But, for example, two days ago some people who [INDISCERNIBLE] illegally most of the houses so that they care for the real estate management of those locations, they stopped us. But then some habitants came and say, you know what, it sounds kind of crazy, but you can’t paste on the ruins, but you can paste on our houses in the middle of the ruins because we are still living in it and they don’t control them. So we came back today to see those habitants and we paste on their own houses. So they came out from their own window, helping us to paste those because they really wanted it to happen. They didn’t want to just let them take over. So it’s quite interesting to see how sometimes people want it so much, that they just help you like you would never expect.

MULLINS: So, it’s kind of like performance art?

JR: Yeah, exactly. I always in a way use the same technique but adapt to the location. And it’s always a new step in a way. In the Middle East, when I was pasting in the street, everybody was just stopping because they’ve never seen anyone doing some art work like that. So, I had like hundreds of people around looking at it. They just wanted to know what was the purpose of something of the wall that has no advertising aim or no political aim. And so those people, they decide if they like it or not, if they want it on their house or not, because they’ll be the one explaining why they let me do it on their house. And that’s the strongest thing. In the Middle East, you have to imagine that when I was pasting in Ramallah, in Palestine, some Israeli faces on the buildings, I was amazed that the people let me do it. Because I will do that pasting, but then I’ll be gone. And you’ll be the one, everyday, explaining why on your house in Palestine, you had an Israeli face. And so for me that was the strongest message ever because it showed that the people, they are much more open minded than we think. And that’s really about my work, I think it’s about reaching limits and sometime they’re really far.

MULLINS: Sometimes they’re really far. Do you know how long those Israeli faces lasted on the walls of these Palestinian buildings?

JR: Yeah. To give you an example, on the Palestinian side, we pasted a rabbi, a priest and an imam next to each other. And we were pretty sure that the rabbi faces would get scratched by the people, and it never did. It’s still up there four years later on the wall. And for me that’s the biggest message. It is kind of open doors and that’s why I’m trying to go in places where doors need to be opened.

MULLINS:  JR, thank you very much for talking with us.

JR: Thank you.

MULLINS: Do you mind if I ask you what JR stands for?

JR: Initial, yeah, definitely.

MULLINS: Just testing. I didn’t think I’d be able to get it from you, but it was worth a shot. Well, congratulations. JR, thank you.

JR: Thank you.

MULLINS: The French artist JR, winner of the 2011 TED Prize. See him at work in Africa at TheWorld.org.

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