JR's Funeral Performance and Exhibition at Galleria Continua, San Gimignano

On September 26, 2020, French street artist JR staged a collective funeral performance titled "Processione Omélia Contadina" in the Tuscan town of San Gimignano. The procession started from Piazza Sant'Agostino and ended in a field outside the town, where a large effigy of a farmer created by JR was buried, accompanied by a band of musicians. The event coincided with the opening of JR's first solo exhibition in Italy at Galleria Continua. Italian filmmaker Alice Rohrwacher co-directed the short film "Omelia contadina," which premiered as a Special Screening at the 77th Venice International Film Festival in 2020. The project was inspired by a conversation between JR and Rohrwacher about the destruction of agricultural landscapes by intensive monocultures, which they compared to a war cemetery. The exhibition at Galleria Continua runs until January 10, 2021, featuring photographic works on glass and plaster, a site-specific installation transforming the former cinema theater, and a retrospective of JR's career from his early days pasting portraits in Paris to his international acclaim. The show includes portraits of ordinary people that JR has made famous, highlighting social injustices.