JR's lens travels through Cuba

As part of the project The Chronicles of Cuba 2019, the French street photographer and artist Jean René, best known for his pseudonym JR, travels through several cities in the country.

In each of these cities and towns, JR captures just over a hundred faces. He is interested in expressions, which are hidden in the eyes, in countenance, in thoughts ... He has with The Chronicles of Cuba 2019 the objective of recreating the historical, cultural and social legacy from the voice and image of the country - above all, who inhabit it - in real time. The project is based on collaboration and interaction between the management team and the Cuban society, which is documented through videos, audios ...

In Holguín, under the auspices of the Provincial Center of Plastic Arts, his team, also composed of other photographers and filmmakers, worked in the vicinity of the Plaza de La Marqueta Cultural Complex, where they placed the tent and the wide green screen.

The technique used caught the attention of those who passed by, while JR, one of the most famous street performers on the planet, without taking off his hat and characteristic sunglasses, photographed musicians, actors, writers, but also street vendors, workers cleaning… “Can art change the world? Maybe we should change the question. Can art change people?” JR wonders.

The chronicles of Cuba, is the last chapter of one of his most ambitious projects till the date, part of a wide series of murals entitled Crónicas, initiated at the end of 2016, from the murals of Mexican Diego Rivera. In 2017 he made Les Bosquets, in the Parisian suburb of Clichy-Montfermeil, with 750 participants; in 2018 it was in San Francisco, United States, with 1206 inhabitants; and in 2019, 1128 New Yorkers posed for the mural that is currently in the Brooklyn Museum. Those are the direct precedents of the current initiative that seeks, for the first time, the portrait of an entire country, a land that, moreover, loves and has visited since 2012.

In May of that year, through a collaboration with Cuban-American artist José Parlá, JR worked at Wrinkles of the City, creating huge murals on the walls of Havana. Both artists photographed and recorded twenty-five older people, to make large-scale portraits that Parlá intertwined with calligraphic writings and paintings, forming a kind of palimpsest. JR also participated in the 2019 Biennale, when he hit the portrait of a Havana boy on the wall of the Continuous Gallery.

After visiting Santiago de Cuba and Baracoa (Guantanamo) and even with 10 provinces ahead, JR will make a large mural that will be exhibited in the National Museum of Fine Arts.

 A trip through the Island for three weeks to capture the faces and voices of the Cuban people is what occupies the French creator, who works with each individual while they decide how they want to be represented, while the selection criteria are void: all people are considered equal, and are invited to participate.

Precisely one of the highlights of his work is the humanity of the images with which he makes visible the stigmatized and excluded from society. In times where intolerance and discrimination prevail, JR prefers to side with the solution. “I think being optimistic today is more original than being pessimistic. Artists face the challenge of having their eyes wide open to the world and seeing things beyond what the media shows. I was recently in Somalia and it was an amazing experience. I think the great walls are internal, and I like to tear them down doing things that people think are impossible,” says the artist born in 1983.

JR works the border between art and activism, as it freely exhibits its work in the streets and rooftops of the world, capturing the attention of those who do not visit the great museums.

Photos: Wilker López