VENUES

Emmanuel Perrotin founded his first gallery in Paris in 1990 at the age of 21. He then opened Perrotin Hong Kong in 2012, which has been followed by galleries in New York in 2013, Seoul in 2016, Tokyo in 2017, and Shanghai in 2018. With spaces located on three continents and by participating in art fairs around the world, Perrotin has gained international recognition and influence over the past three decades.

Perrotin Tokyo is pleased to present “Contretemps,” a solo exhibition of new and never-before-seen work by JR. Consisting of early pieces from his “Unframed” series, dating back to 2012, as well as brand-new works created in his home city of Paris during the pandemic, this show sees the artist revisiting his roots.

Much of JR’s work deals with people whose stories would otherwise not be told—people whose lives are often obscured or hidden—by exhibiting their photographic likenesses on a monumental scale. Through a similar relationship to architecture, inaccessible spaces and famous overly photographed locations succeed in finding new language through JR’s lens.