Brilliant Graffiti

The anonymous graffiti artist, known as JR, began his large scale (in every sense) artistic career by simply finding a camera on the subway in Paris...

Self Portrait

His first major project was actualized in 2006. The project entitled Portrait of a generation, exhibits portraits of the suburban "thugs" that he posted, in huge formats, in the bourgeois districts of Paris.  This illegal project became "official" when the Paris City Hall wrapped its building with JR's photos.

Other projects include:

Face 2 Face:  in which he posted huge illuminating portraits of Israelis and Palestinians facing each other in eight cities, as well as on both sides of the Security/ Separation wall. 

And Women:  a project intending to underline the dignity of women with large scale portraits in Africa, Brazil, India, and Cambodia.

Gaby Wood asks why he does what he does in an article published by the New York Times on February 24, 2011. He responds, “I think it comes from several things, firstly a real curiosity about the world.  When I was little, I didn’t really travel — from the suburbs to Paris was already a journey.  I had a foreigner’s eye on the city, and I still enjoy that point of view.  Then there’s the fact that one of the things that touches me most is injustice.  I’m of mixed origins — North Africa, Eastern Europe, Spain — and this generation today, we’re all a little bit from everywhere.  My parents were born abroad.  I was born in France, but I feel comfortable everywhere — I don’t see the borders.”

To learn more about the artist, visit http://jr-art.net/

Join JR's latest collaborative project and post your own photographic posters.

Join JR in his Inside Out Project- a global graffiti art project. Inside Out is a collaboration between the artist JR, the Ted Prize, and you. 

The Inside Out project invites everyone to join in JR's aesthetic: Everyone is challenged to use black and white photographic portraits to discover, reveal and share the untold stories and images of people around the world.

Upload a portrait, receive a poster, and post it in your community.  To see the thousands of portraits already included in this collaborative graffiti piece, check out the submissions on Inside Out.

“To change the way you see things,” JR says, “is already to change things themselves” (Gaby Wood, NYT).

Poster Prints of JR's work are available from Crakedz.

G&L 

Women Rank Rock Climbing as the Sexiest Sport

A study by a University of Hertfordshire professor suggests that women are especially attracted to men who rock climb.

Working with fitness expert Sam Murphy, Prof. Richard Wiseman polled over 6,000 people to find out which of 15 sports they thought would make a member of the opposite sex more attractive. Climbing topped the list for women with 57%, edging out extreme sports like soccer and hiking.

As an alumni of Prescott College I can attest that everyone knows 'dating a rack' is the fastest way to learn how to climb with access to top of the line gear. Climbing is just a sexy sport in and of itself. It’s adventurous, acrobatic, and takes place in some of the most beautiful spots in nature. Climbers themselves tend to be trim, muscular, extremely flexible people with a penchant for taking their shirts off. Who's not on board with that?

 Yosemite National Park

As for the most unsexy sport... Golf didn’t fare quite as well. The sport came in second to last in women’s opinions, just above aerobics. According to Aspiring Golfer, Wiseman suggests three reasons that women find golf so unattractive:

1. Golfers don’t have to be fit.
2. They keep their clothes on while playing.
3. They frequently wear plaid and Pringle jumpers.

As unsexy as these reasons are, I’m not convinced that super fit, scantily-clad golfers would be enough to make golf interesting, although it would probably boost the PGA Tour’s female audience. 

Whether we’ll now be seeing more golfers swapping their plaid pants for climbing harnesses is hard to say. To me, the sexiness of climbing is less about toned muscles and hard-core maneuvering and more about the passion and commitment behind the sport. If you’re not feeling it, it’s awfully hard to fake.

Always spicy,

G&L

PS - Did we mention we're having a 50% OFF sale?