MIGRANTS, WALKING NEW YORK CITY. NEW YORK, USA (2015)
This work is formed by five skate decks made of 7 ply grade A Canadian maple wood. This set belongs to a numbered limited edition of 250. Top-print includes printed artist studio stamp. Includes certificate of authenticity issued by the editor and stamped by the artist.
The art of JR merges photography, installation, street art and social engagement. Following his 2014 work on Ellis Island, where the artist created a series of portraits of immigrants and displayed them at the island's abandoned hospital, the artist took some pictures of immigrants walking the streets of New York. The artist focused on the picture taken to Elmar Aliyev a 20-year-old waiter from Azerbaijan who immigrated to the United States after he won the green-card lottery.
One night in 2015, JR and his team pasted 62 strips of paper on the ground of the Flatiron Plaza, creating a 150-foot-tall image of Aliyev. That day people walked on his image and, just like many other immigrants, Aliyev was invisible to them.