JR in the Bronx and the Centre Pompidou

The french graffiti artist JR recently won the 100,000 dollar TED prize.
He has undertaken art projects all around the world designed to give the faceless a face, for instance in a poor village in Kenya he has placed the faces of the women that live there on the roofs of the houses. Thus what was once a shanty town is turned into a work of art. This project was called *Women are Heros*.

One thing he is doing this summer is posting the images of people that live in Hunts Point Bronx on the walls of this area.
I like the idea making people you know, instead of like Kate Moss (nothing against Kate Moss), huge posters in the neighborhood... so you can aspire to be your teacher or your person at the post office... I am conflicted about graffiti and also think it is sort of site specific like this project might never fly in suburban NJ where i grew up ....
but then on the other hand the urban enviroment is shaped much more by advertising than the suburban environment, so using tools of large scale advertising to humanise the environment might be a good way to go as long as community groups have a hand in it.

Another thing he has done in Paris is set up a huge photo booth open to the public in the Center Pompidou tourist and regular people from all over the world can take pictures of themeselves, which come out as huge posters. So you dont have be famous or an actor to get a huge picture of yourself, you can just be you. Which is a nice thought.