JR

French street artist JR is guided by one question: Can art change the world? The inquiry doubles as the name of his foundation, which supports community art programs. This summer, JR (a moniker of his given name, Jean-René) wrapped Paris’s oldest bridge in fabric, for the monumental public installation La Caverne Du Pont Neuf. The 13-day project made the bridge look like a craggy mountainscape and created a cave-like atmosphere inside. It was designed, he says, to invite the city to slow down and resist “overconnected” modern life. Other works by the artist have taken a more overt political tone. His 2017 mural Kikito featured a giant portrait of a real-life toddler peering over the border fence between California and Tecate, Mexico. In 2019, he worked with incarcerated people to create a mural in the yard of a California prison; seven years later, JR’s nonprofit has brought similar arts instruction to about 4,000 prisons worldwide. On Sept. 14, Pope Leo XIV inaugurated JR’s installation of a colossal wave inside the Vatican’s Apostolic Library, a commentary on the threats of war and climate change to knowledge. “All my work, even in the most violent zones … has always been about light, about people, about hope,” JR says. “It's in times like now, even more, we need artists to remind us of our humanity.”