JR – TEHACHAPI
2021-05-24JR is known for installing large-scale, public murals in collaboration with those portrayed, often with an emphasis on social justice. In October 2019, JR was given access to a maximum-security prison in California with the purpose of working with the incarcerated inhabitants on a collaborative art project. The artist worked with 48 currently or formerly incarcerated people, as well as correctional officers and individuals involved in the incarceration process. Together, they executed a large-scale wheat-paste portrait of the participants, stretched across the prison’s main complex and visible from above Tehachapi.
In 2020, the artist returned to the prison for a second iteration of the project – together with the inmates, he wheat pasted on the courtyard’s walls a photograph of the surrounding Tehachapi Mountains. Both projects remained intact for several days before the harsh elements of the Southern California desert caused the wheat-paste to disintegrate. What remains today is documentation of the projects and the stories of each participant.
Opposite – Tehachapi, Mountain, February 6, 2020, 5.07p.m., U.S.A., 2020
Exhibition runs through to July 2nd, 2021
Perrotin New York
130 Orchard Street
New York
NY 10002
