JR

"Each time I’ve seen walls that have caught my attention, or that I’ve heard about a lot in the media, they would stick in my mind. I would even dream about it. When Trump started to talk a lot about a wall along the Mexican border, one day I woke up and I saw a kid looking over the wall. I was wondering, What is this kid thinking? What would any kid think? We know that a one-year-old doesn’t have a political vision, or any political point of view. He doesn’t see walls as we see them."

The French artist JR is a magician who conjures people onto walls. His method is simple: he travels the world in his “Inside Out” photo-booth truck, taking people’s portraits, which he then pastes onto the sides of buildings. 

The work is temporary by design; most of the walls on which he pastes his images will long outlast them, just as they will outlast the people who live within and walk by. 

The point is to bear witness, to mark the spot of a life with dignity, humor, and grace.

Last week, JR installed a new work in the Mexican city of Tecate, an hour southeast of San Diego: a monumental photograph of Kikito, a smiling toddler, pasted onto a special scaffolding placed just behind the border fence with California. Seen from the American side, the child seems to be peering over the slatted fence as if from inside a crib, getting ready to crawl toward something that’s caught his interest. 

(Full article found here)

(Video Link with Artist)