After famously taking his mobile photo studio to Times Square for his ‘Inside Out’ portrait project in 2013, French street artist JR hit New York’s streets again in Spring ’18 to make detailed photo collages championing the everyday New Yorker, now on view at Galerie Perrotin. Titled ‘Chronicles of New York City,’ the project follows ‘Chronicles’ in Paris and San Francisco and is also currently featured in Brooklyn Museum’s Great Hall. JR invited over a thousand New Yorkers to step into his truck turned studio to ‘present themselves as they’d like to be seen and remembered.’ The resulting collages bring the city’s citizens together in harmony and common purpose. (On view on the Lower East Side through Oct 26th.)
JR, detail from ‘The Chronicles of New York City, Lightbox, USA, print on duratrans, led backlight, steel frame, 2018.
Merrily Kerr is an art critic and writer based in New York. For more than 20 years, Merrily has published in international art magazines including Time Out New York, Art on Paper, Flash Art, Art Asia Pacific, Art Review, and Tema Celeste in addition to writing catalogue essays and guest lecturing. Merrily teaches art appreciation at Marymount Manhattan College and has taught for Cooper Union Continuing Education.
For more than a decade Merrily has crafted personalized tours of cultural discovery in New York's galleries and museums for individuals and groups, including corporate tours, collectors, artists, advertising agencies, and student groups from Texas Woman's University, Parsons School of Design, Chicago's Moody Institute, Cooper Union Continuing Education, Hunter College Continuing Education and other institutions. Merrily's tours have been featured in The New York Times, Conde Nast Traveler, Sydney Morning Herald and Philadelphia Magazine.
Merrily is licensed by New York City's Department of Consumer Affairs as a tour guide and is a member of the International Association of Art Critics (AICA USA)
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