JR exhibits freely in the streets of the world, catching the attention of people who are not typical museum visitors.

In 2006, he created Portrait of a Generation, portraits of suburban “thugs” that he posted in huge formats in the bourgeois districts of Paris. This illegal project became “official” when the Paris City Hall wrapped its building with JR’s photos. In 2007, with Marco, he made Face 2 Face, the biggest illegal exhibition ever. JR posted huge portraits of Israelis and Palestinians face to face in eight Palestinian and Israeli cities. In 2008, he embarked on a long international trip for Women Are Heroes, in which he underlines the dignity of women who are often the targets of conflicts, and also created The Wrinkles of the City. In 2010, his film Women Are Heroes was presented at Cannes.

In 2011 he received the TED Prize, after which he created Inside Out, an international participatory art project that allows people worldwide to get their picture taken and paste it to support an idea and share their experience. As of March 2013, over 130,000 people from more than 100 countries have participated. As he remains anonymous and doesn’t explain his huge full-frame portraits of people making faces, JR leaves the space empty for an encounter between the subject/protagonist and the passer-by/interpreter. That is what JR's work is about, raising questions.