The TED Prize-Winning Street Artist JR Blankets L.A. with Work: "Too bad a certain graffiti artist covering L.A. with his trite illustrations has been stealing the thunder from one of the city's most exciting street art exhibitions in years. JR, the French street artist who will be awarded the TED Prize in Long Beach next weekend,
has finally brought his Wrinkles of the City project to town, plastering large-format photos of a neighborhood's inhabitants along its buildings. Across Los Angeles, you'll soon find the black-and-white, tightly-cropped eyes of local citizens staring you down from forgotten walls.
In the spirit of JR's community-minded work, he won't just disappear into the vaunted halls of the TED conference next week. He'll also be launching a TED Prize experience at Phantom Galleries LA in Long Beach that will be open to the public March 3 and 4. It's an especially apt location since Phantom Galleries LA has also been responsible for dozens of pop-up art spaces which have occupied L.A.'s all-too-vacant real estate. Founder and director Liza Simone sees a real connection between those pop-ups and the public nature of JR's art. "Both put contemporary fine art into accessible locations, pushing art into everyday life while creating unexpected art experiences," she says. "This inspires an environment that is rich and deep with possibility where anything can happen."