Director and filmmaker Matt Black collated a series of casual and insightful interviews with current artists around the world, publishing these interviews into the book Reflections: In Conversation with Today’s Artists. These interviews were originally recorded and published in collaboration with one of our favourite film blogs, Nowness. They discuss inspirations, motivations and stories from the artists’ careers - and they can all be watched for free online!
A favourite of ours has to be ‘JR’s Monster Project’. JR grew up in Paris and started his career in graffiti on the streets. He then began taking photographs and pasting his work around the city, using buildings, bridges, trains and bin lorries as his exhibition space.
“I kind of got into the art world by accident. When I started, I didn’t even know an artist was a job. I thought what I was doing was called vandalism.”
JR’s local portrait project very quickly became worldwide. He had people taking their own photographs and pasting the printed work in their own cities.
“It went from a local project with a global impact, to a local project with a local impact, that speaks to the community and that is because I go out of the equation.”
At the end of the interview, JR discusses his plans to exhibit his photographs inside a gallery and reflects on the difference between this and displaying his work outside in the streets. He refers to the city as “the biggest gallery that exists. It is also a space that you can not reproduce in the inside because it touched people that never stepped inside [a gallery].”
Check out JR’s Monster Project and many other Matt Black interviews by clicking below.