Paris, France

J R creates pervasive art that spreads uninvited on buildings of Parisian slums, on walls in the Middle East, on broken bridges in Africa or in favelas in Brazil. People in the exhibit communities, those who often live with the bare minimum, discover something absolutely unnecessary but utterly wonderful. And they don’t just see it, they make it. Elderly women become models for a day; kids turn into artists for a week. In this art scene, there is no stage to separate the actors from the spectators… (from TED, read more here)

Last night, the TED conference announced that it planned to give its annual $100,000 prize for 2011—awarded in the past to figures like Bill Clinton, Bono and the biologist E. O. Wilson—to the Parisian street artist known as J R, a shadowy figure who has made a name for himself by plastering colossal photographs in downtrodden neighborhoods around the world. The images usually extol local residents, to whom he has become a Robin Hood-like hero… (from today’s New York Times, read more here)

From the slums of Kenya to the Paris banlieues, the guerilla photographer J R aims to put a human face to the most impoverished areas of the world. Just don’t ask him who he is… (from The Guardian, read more here)