Sometimes a big international prize is awarded and you go “Huh?” Others — too rarely — make you go “Wow!” Today was a “Wow” day, with the announcement of the 2011 TED Prize — not to a jet-setting pol or a headline name but to a guerilla artist you’ve probably never heard of (I hadn’t): the “photograffeur” (let’s call it French for photo-graffiti-ist) known only as JR, whose work includes installing giant vinyl blow-ups of photos of local residents in impoverished neighborhoods (sometimes the vinyl actually acts as roofing).
Here’s what he did with the monstrosity of Arik Sharon’s concrete wall — Israel’s “security fence” — in Bethlehem:
Ugliness met with art. Aggression with humor. Confinement with life. Yes!
Click here and here for slide shows of JR’s work, including this spirited response in the Swiss town of Vevey to Switzerland’s ban on minarets:
Filed under: art, Islam, Middle East, sanity Tagged: | "security fence", 2011 TED Prize, Bethlehem, Israel, JR, Palestine, photo-graffeur, photography
Nice, Lesley. Sometimes a picture carries all we need to say.
TOOT! And hats off to the renegades.