JR and Leandro Erlich Transform Urban Reality Through Public Art

In June 2026, JR will transform the Pont-Neuf in Paris into a giant cave, likely the world's largest public art project, permanently altering the city's reality through imagination despite its ephemeral nature. Meanwhile, Leandro Erlich presents twelve monumental installations at the Grand Palais for his first Paris retrospective, curated by the article's author. The article draws parallels between the two artists, who create works that stage our realities and make us actors within them. Erlich's earlier project—a proposed duplicate of Buenos Aires' obelisk in brick in the suburb of Évry in 1994—sparked media controversy and was never built, but exists in the imagination of Argentines. In 2008, JR photographed women in Rio de Janeiro's Morro da Providência favela, printing their faces and eyes onto building facades, stairs, and rooftops, making the favela appear to watch the city and drawing national attention to the women's dignity. Both artists invent new possibilities in an era of fake news and AI-generated images, inviting viewers to question whether we see only what we believe or believe only what we see. The article cites Robert Musil's 1930 novel 'The Man Without Qualities' on the sense of the possible, and Robert Filliou's philosophy that 'art is what makes life more important than art.' The piece appears in Beaux Arts Magazine n°504, June 2026 issue, titled 'Ces artistes qui transforment le réel.'