Yesterday, I went to see the JR exhibit at the Brooklyn Museum. JR is an artist from Paris, France who was originally a graffiti artist until he began taking pictures (with a camera he found on the Paris Metro) of he and his friends tagging all over the city. He posted enlarged copies of those photographs on walls across the city and framed them in spray paint. This evolved into JR taking close-up portraits of his friends who lived in the rough ghettos of France and posted enlarged images of their faces around the wealthier parts of Paris.
JR’s art moved from a personal place (images of he and his friends tagging up: a look at the lives of graffiti artists) to a more public issue (infiltrating white, bourgeoisie societies with Black and brown urban faces). Naturally I was moved by the portraiture aspect of JR’s work (portraiture is my passion) but as I moved through the exhibit, I found myself compelled to make art that works in and acts for public spaces.
I work in Harlem, New York: a neighborhood that is under attack by increased gentrification. Recently a young, white woman who had just arrived to New York and attended Columbia University (near/in Harlem) was stabbed to death in Morningside Park (a park just two blocks from where I teach young Black men and women high school English). The three suspects were all very young Black men. While news and headlines cried over the injustice of the murder of the young white girl, my primary concern was the young men I teach. The police had (have) not yet caught all three suspects. They are still on the hunt for two young Black men. And as we learned from the story of the Central Park Five, any young Black men will do in a pinch.
Inspired by JR’s work, I am planning my next project to be an intervention into Morningside Park. Portraits of young black men (small in size) strewn around the park with messages for anyone who will pick them up. I am still conceiving the project but I do know that I will collaborate with my students through the process.
