The Wrinkles of the City: Los Angeles

JR is back with the next installment of his world wide project The Wrinkles of the City. This time the visionary artist has chosen to focus on the people of Los Angeles; is it really as superficial as the media paints it?
“JR knows how to hold up a mirror to a community. In the home of the moving image, he has used his still photographs – stunningly magnified and arrestingly positioned – to prompt profound questions about what a meaningful life entails.” –Jane Rosenthal, writing in the Introduction.
This is JR’s way of reminding us that we are all witnesses to the triumphs and outrages of our generation. As he photographs his subjects, he listens to their fascinating life stories and immortalizes the only witnesses left of the past. Los Angeles is where the Hollywood myth was born, where glamour and beauty has come to define the city. For this project, JR juxtaposes the imperfection and meaning held in the wrinkles of the elderly with the image of perfection and regenerated beauty that has become a hallmark of the 21st century.
The 2011 TED prize winner, born in 1983, started off as a graffiti artist but turned to photography after finding a camera in a Paris metro station. Since then he has gone on to undertake a variety of projects using the side of buildings and other structures as his gallery. Heading back to his native country earlier this year, the artist chose to cover the famous Louvre Pyramid in one of his black and white photographs. The photographer recently also turned his own talents to directing the short film ‘ELLIS’. The narrative, starring Robert de Niro, centers around JR’s own unframed art on Ellis Island and the forgotten story of the immigrants who built America.