Exhibition Review: JR | Les Enfants d'Ouranos
@JR. Les Enfants d’Ouranos, Bois #13, 2022. Ink on wood. 78 1/2 x 136 inch. ©JR. Photograph: Guillaume Ziccarelli. Courtesy of the artist and Perrotin.
Written by Max Wiener
Copy Edited by Robyn Hager
Photo Edited by Billy Chen
On March 3rd, French photographer JR opened his new series, Les Enfants D’Ouranos, at the Perrotin gallery in the heart of downtown Manhattan. The series is an unofficial sequel and builds upon JR’s former project Déplacés-e-s; the images are the negatives of his previous collection. The series is scheduled to run through April 15.
The universally-acclaimed Frenchman aimed to capture similar praise as his former work, which took viewers on a powerful journey through the eyes of refugee children in Ukraine, Rwanda, Mauritania, Greece, and Colombia. This was punk rock photography; we saw the truth and were forced to soak it up. Les Enfants D’Ouranos, although showing negatives of the same images, has a much different feel to it. The faces we became familiar with are now nothing but spirits and shadows set over black backdrops. It’s different, but it takes nothing away from the power of the work at hand. If anything, JR found a way to take the viewer on a more intimate journey. The “visible” aspects of the images - the refugee identity of the subjects - become blurred by a shared sense of youth and engagement.
@JR. Les Enfants d’Ouranos, Bois #7, 2022. Ink on wood, oak frame. 71 x 46 inch. ©JR. Photograph: Guillaume Ziccarelli. Courtesy of the artist and Perrotin.
JR aimed to capture a sense of community in Les Enfants D’Ouranos, and he does so in droves. These children have essentially been stripped of their identity, which effectively allows viewers to create their own narrative of the image. Without knowing these are refugee children, you are proactively creating your own narrative of the image. You, and everyone else who experience it, bond over the shared experience of creating your own identity within JR’s work. It is an interesting shift away from the classic JR look of maximizing the subject to almost a divine extent - his recent photographs of the 2023 Academy Award winners make celebrities look like disciples.
@ JR. Les Enfants d’Ouranos, Bois #10, 2022. Ink on wood, oak frame. 71 x 46 inch. ©JR. Photograph: Guillaume Ziccarelli. Courtesy of the artist and Perrotin.
His specific style - producing the negatives and blowing them up onto wood - creates an iconoclastic and even ambiguous theme throughout his exhibit, directly opposing his concrete image/meaning correlation from his previous work. Déplacés-e-s showed concrete images of refugee children, creating more of a photographic essay and taking us on these children’s journey through his exhibition. Each image has their own story and narrative, and the children, for lack of a better term, are real. In Les Enfants D’Ouranos, instead of looking at a particular narrative, JR invites us to place ourselves within the faceless facade of the photographed child. Photographs like “Bois #7” and “Bois #10” are prime examples of this - they allow the feelings of intimacy and familiarity to be more freely expressed, and the boundless pastures of our own imagination can be fully explored whilst staring at the image.
@ JR. Les Enfants d’Ouranos, Bois #15, 2022. Ink on wood. 92 1/2 x 165 1/2 inch. ©JR. Photograph: Guillaume Ziccarelli. Courtesy of the artist and Perrotin.
@ JR. Les Enfants d’Ouranos (detail), Bois #15, 2022. Ink on wood. 92 1/2 x 165 1/2 inch. ©JR. Photograph: Guillaume Ziccarelli. Courtesy of the artist and Perrotin.
The contrast of light is a prominent focal point of JR’s new exhibit, especially in the confines of the Perrotin gallery. The room itself is engulfed by swaths of natural light, but the walls themselves are filled with colorless images. Many galleries with bright, colorful photography become overwhelming smatterings of euphoria, but Perrotin’s exhibition feels intimate and serene. The natural light illuminates the faceless children and creates a more delicate atmosphere. Les Enfants D’Ouranos once again proves JR’s talent behind the lens, and a true fan can only hope he converts this series into a trilogy of dazzling displays of imagery.
