Artsy at the Fair: The Armory Show 2018

Presented in partnership with Artsy and Jeffrey Deitch, internationally renowned artist and Academy Award nominee, JR is debuting SO CLOSE (2018), a monumental new work at The Armory Show this year.

Walking up to the fair, visitors will be faced with the super-sized installation of a line of immigrants—but these archival images don’t just reflect past immigrant stories from Ellis Island. Instead, the faces represented have been updated with portraits of Syrian refugees.

Like his recent image of the smiling toddler Kikito strategically installed on scaffolding in Tecate, peering over U.S.-Mexican border wall from the California side, the silhouettes of SO CLOSE are situated at a symbolic point of entry—to the city, to the country, and to the art world.

SO CLOSE is featured in the fair’s Platform section, curated by Jen Mergel, who has selected fifteen site-responsive works located around Pier 92 and 94.

Viewing SO CLOSE is free to the public without a ticket to the fair. For those interested in hearing more from the artist, the project will culminate in a talk with JR and Jeffrey Deitch, moderated by Artsy’s Curator at Large, Matthew Israel.