“OUTPOSTS” JR
In a stirring fusion of art, activism, and mythic storytelling, French artist JR inaugurates Perrotin’s brand-new London gallery with OUTPOSTS, a solo exhibition running from March 14 to May 3, 2025. Known for turning the streets into stages for global empathy, JR here invites us into an emotionally resonant and visually grand exploration of displaced childhoods, identity, and hope.
Housed in Perrotin’s freshly unveiled Mayfair location—tucked behind the storied Claridge’s—the exhibition marks a powerful beginning for the gallery’s London chapter, and a deeply personal full-circle moment for JR, whose first gallery show took place in the city in 2008.
An Artistic Ode to Resilience
At the heart of OUTPOSTS are two ongoing bodies of work: Déplacé·e·s and Children of Ouranos, both created in close collaboration with refugee communities around the world. JR brings together 15 evocative works, including video installations and large-scale mixed media pieces, spotlighting the lives of displaced children in Colombia, Ukraine, Rwanda, Mauritania, and Greece.
Through Déplacé·e·s, JR’s signature monumental photo-banners depict children mid-motion—running, smiling, dreaming—held aloft by crowds across refugee camps and cityscapes. These images, soaring at 120 feet in length, have become temporary monuments to innocence, dignity, and joy in the face of unimaginable hardship.
Most memorably, JR’s now-iconic Valeriia banner—an aerial portrait of a five-year-old Ukrainian refugee unfurled in Lviv shortly after the Russian invasion—made global headlines as the cover of TIME Magazine in 2022. That moment, reimagined here in full scale, captures the sheer power of a child’s image to transcend borders and politics.
From Photojournalism to Mythology
In a more meditative turn, JR’s Children of Ouranos transforms these same subjects into glowing silhouettes carved in ink and wood. By reversing light and shadow, the artist reconfigures reality: shadows become halos, and children become celestial beings, echoing Greek mythology’s Ouranos—the god of the sky and father of the Titans.
This mythological framing imbues the children with a sacred energy. As JR puts it, “The feeling of childhood significantly amplifies the impact of any message.” Through a poetic inversion of photographic technique, he highlights not only what is visible, but what has long been invisible—the divinity of children, their right to safety, to joy, to future.
Raising Urgent Questions with Quiet Power
As global headlines continue to chronicle war, migration, and humanitarian crises, OUTPOSTS offers a poignant counter-narrative: one that centers the dreams, not just the displacement, of the world’s youngest victims.
“What is their place, their importance, their value?” JR asks in a conversation accompanying the exhibition. “What are their rights? What is their destiny?”
These are the quiet yet thunderous questions that reverberate through the show—and through the streets and skies where JR’s work continues to live, long after it leaves the walls of the gallery.
A Monumental Beginning for Perrotin London
Perrotin’s new 350 m² gallery space at Brook’s Mews opens its doors with this timely exhibition, aligning its debut with London’s vibrant art season, including Frieze London. According to founder Emmanuel Perrotin, the gallery's long-standing relationship with JR made him the natural choice to launch the space.
“London has always been a special city for me,” says JR. “I’m honored to be the first artist to be showcased at Perrotin's new space!”
With OUTPOSTS, JR reaffirms the role of the artist as witness, storyteller, and bridge-builder—offering not just a vision, but a responsibility, to see and honor the humanity in every child.