In the middle of a darkened building the street artist, whose modus operandi is to make black and white prints of his photographs and then paste them on the streets (his work has adorned the exterior of Tate Modern in London), has set up a high street photo booth with a difference. Subjects walk into the booth to have their portrait taken. These are then relayed to an HP Designjet Z6200 large-format inkjet photo printer, which is positioned out of sight on a mezzanine floor 40ft above the ground. The whole process from photograph to output takes around five minutes and when the portrait is complete it dramatically emerges from an elevated slot and flutters to the participant waiting below.



The artist is taking and printing around 80 90×135cm portraits per day on average, with just shy of 5,000 prints produced since the exhibition commenced in July. In addition to the portrait snaps taken at the Arles booth individuals can also submit photographs online, which are printed and then posted out by the artist.

 

His intention is that all of the portraits should then be pasted to the walls of the towns and cities in which the participants live.JR's aim is to create a 'large-scale participatory art project that transforms messages of personal identity into pieces of artistic work'. It's a brilliantly executed creative idea that's the perfect marriage of art and print. However, Inside Out has become a victim of its own success with hoards of locals queuing for hours to have their picture taken and printed by a well-known artist for free (mothers are taking their kids along to have family portraits taken). And judging by the lack of posters pasted on the streets of Arles itself it appears that many people are reluctant to part with these high quality prints and are keeping them as a personal memento instead.