Robert De Niro and JR in New York, July 2016. Image courtesy of JR's Instagram

Robert De Niro takes JR for a spin round New York!

The native New Yorker and star of JR’s Ellis film helps the artist with latest iteration of his Migrants project

After taking over the Louvre in Paris, French artist JR is back in New York, ready to paste more of his migrant images around the five boroughs. The works, which the French born artist began last year, seek to give a face to newly arrived migrants in the city.

The series, in turn, arose out of JR’s Ellis project, a film and accompanying installation which looks back at an earlier generation of migrants, who passed through the immigration facilities on Ellis Island, just off the coast of Manhattan, during the first few decades of the 20th century.

 

Robert De Niro on the set of JR's Ellis film, 2015. Image courtesy of JR
Robert De Niro on the set of JR's Ellis film, 2015. Image courtesy of JR

Robert De Niro’s grandparents passed through Ellis; De Niro stars in JR’s 2015 Ellis film – currently available to watch free on Netflix and iTunes. So, when it came to pasting up the latest iteration in series of recent NY migrants, JR knew who to turn to.

It's great to see one of the more famous grandsons of New York immigrants paying tribute to the city’s more recent arrivals - and having a blast on a slightly dilapidated VéloSoleX moped into the bargain!

 

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For more on JR’s life and work buy our monograph, JR: Can Art Change the World?; and for greater insight into his friend and collaboator’s work get Robert De Niro: Anatomy of an Actor.