portrait of a generation
Posted: August 7th, 2007 | Author: kamau | Filed under: magazine, photography, street art | 2 Comments »after the riots of 2004 photographer/street artist JR decided to visit the banlieues or ghettos that ring paris to take upclose portraits of the young men and women who live there. he took the results and made poster size images that he pasted up around paris as (illegal) street art. in effect it brings the gallery to the street and forces parisians confront their image of youth who have usually depicted only as rioting, violent hoodlums. “28 millimetres, portrait of a generation”
via foam, international photography magazine
[...] On Africa Visual Media – itself a really interesting blog on African and Africa-related cultural artifacts in film, photography, television, and print- I came across a post about a visit that photographer/street artist JR made to the banlieues or ghettos that ring Paris after the 2005 riots. The upclose portraits (blown up to poster-sizes) of the young men and women whom he photographed were then pasted across Paris, an open-air (and illegal) exhibition entitled ‘28mm – portrait of a generation‘ that – in Kamau Mucoki’s words – brings the gallery to the street and forces Parisians to confront the images of these youths who are usually depicted as rioting, violent hoodlums. [...]
[...] PHOTOGRAPHY: JR: Women are Heroes. Guerilla photographer has taken photographs of women in Kenya, Sudan, Sierra Leone, Liberia and Brazil. He usually asks his subjects to make exaggerated/humorous facial expressions and shoots them up close with a wide angle lens. Hen then posts the images he has taken (often illegally) in the environments where his subjects can see them (as opposed to a gallery/museum). Most recently he has posted his images on the sides of homes in the Providencia favela of Rio de Janeiro. [via rion.nu] Previously: Portrait of a Generation previously featured here. [...]