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JR in Milano: Inside Out. Now it's your turn
An installation by the famous street artist in Piazza Duomo
The renowned French street artist JR returns to Milano with his monumental 700 square metre art installation Inside Out. Now it's your turn: from January 31st to February 14th, 2023 it will cover the façade of the Museo del Novecento in Piazza Duomo.
Inside Out, JR's epic and participatory art project, has involved nearly half a million people in 48 countries around the world in the last 10 years. Thousands of faces, one purpose: to raise awareness on a series of key social issues in contemporary public debate ranging from racism to education, mental health, climate change, refugee rights, feminism and the role of the elderly in society.
The artwork at the Museo del Novecento is a mosaic of a thousand photographic portraits - created in collaboration with the Amplifon Foundation - which involved the residents of forty Italian RSA (Residenze Sanitarie per Anziani - elderly care homes), part of the Foundation’s Ciao! project launched in 2020 as a direct response to the isolation linked to the recent pandemic.
It is a public declaration of affection, a way to raise awareness on the importance of the role of the elderly, and of the confrontation between different generations.
For about six months, starting from May 2022, students on the Brera Academy photography course visited forty Italian care homes to meet elderly residents and to involve them in the project. They created the photographic portraits that make up the installation, together with images of some elderly persons from the ViviDown association and the Community of Sant'Egidio, together with the faces of some Ukrainian refugees welcomed in Moldova by the United Nations High Commissioner as part of a joint project with the Amplifon Foundation.
A thousand faces, our history, our future.
Jean René, aka JR, is one of the best-known street artists in the world, a social and cultural activist, famous for his impactful monumental installations.
Born in Paris in 1983, his street actions debuted in the French capital, with graffiti on the rooftops and on subway carriages. However, he soon realized that his work needed to be exhibited on much larger areas. Traveling around Europe, he began to question the spaces, the bare walls, the façades that create the faces of the cities he visited, and decided to devote himself to monumental works that actually inhabit these ‘empty’ spaces. In his own words “In the street we reach people who never go to museums”.
His Portraits of a Generation action brought the faces of the city's youth to the Parisian façades between 2004 and 2006, but he didn’t stop there. In 2007, JR placed giant photos of Israelis and Palestinians on the wall that divides the two states, to demonstrate that there are more things that unite us than those that divide us.
In 2011 he won the TED prize, and from there he launched his collective work, Inside Out, which took him around the world to photograph people of all social backgrounds and communities, to open contemporary debate on social and cultural issues. From New York to New Orleans, Caracas, Tiblisi and Milano.
His works on iconic monuments in Italian and foreign cities are also world famous, such as his trompe l'oeil at the Trocadero in Paris revealing a precipice topped by the Eiffel Tower, and the gigantic collage on the Louvre pyramid, or his reinterpretation of the façade of Palazzo Strozzi in Florence.
Loved JR's installation at the Museo del Novecento and want to see more? There are many other outdoor artworks to admire, from the L.O.V.E. sculpture by Cattelan in Piazza Affari to the bronze Disco Solare by Pomodoro in Piazza Meda.
We have created an open-air art itinerary for you to explore the city!
You are in Piazza Duomo, the heart of the city: after admiring JR's colossal work, you might like to enjoy a visit to the Museo del Novecento, which features an unprecedented collection of works of Futurist art as well as masterpieces from the 1900s to today, or you might choose one of the current exhibitions at Palazzo Reale.
Immerse yourself in the world of Surrealism with Max Ernst, admire the images by portrait and fashion photographer Vincent Peters, or let yourself be entranced by the fantastic visions of Bosch. The choice is all yours!
We highly recommend a visit to the Duomo terraces, where you can admire the JR installation and the whole city from above, but there are plenty of other things to see in the centre. Discover them in our itinerary!
