From 6. to 28. June 2026, “La Caverne du Pont Neuf”, a temporary art installation by JR, will be on display in the heart of Paris. The installation pays homage to Christo and Jeanne-Claude’s “The Pont Neuf Wrapped”, which celebrated its 40th anniversary in 2025. This is a limited-time opportunity for Parisians and visitors alike to experience a reinterpretation of Paris’s oldest bridge.
Image above: JR, La Caverne du Pont Neuf (esquisse préparatoire) Collage 2026 Paper cutout on paper 25.5 x 41 cm (10 x 16⅛ in) — Atelier JR Photo: Courtesy Atelier JR© 2026 Atelier JR.
Funded through the sale of JR’s artworks and private support — without public funding — the installation will be freely accessible 24 hours a day. Owing to its monumental scale, it can be viewed from multiple vantage points across the city, including the banks of the Seine, nearby bridges, riverboats, and even from the Eiffel Tower.
Inspired by the quarries from which the bridge’s stone was originally extracted, the work highlights the material origins of Parisian architecture, creating a dialogue between nature and urban refinement, past and present. Completed in 1607 and built entirely from limestone, the Pont Neuf was the first Parisian bridge designed with pedestrian sidewalks and remains a central element of the city’s urban life.
The installation will take the form of a 120-meter inflatable structure resembling a monumental cave spanning the bridge. Its interior, open to visitors, is conceived as an immersive journey — a symbolic passage balancing fullness and emptiness. Augmented reality experiences developed with Snap Inc.’s AR Studio Paris will extend the physical artwork through interactive visual effects inspired by Étienne-Jules Marey’s chronophotography, accessible via mobile devices and AR glasses.
The project also features a sonic dimension by Thomas Bangalter, former member of Daft Punk, who has created an electroacoustic composition conceived as a “sound sculpture” enhancing the installation’s mineral and mystical atmosphere.
Covering 2,400 square meters, the structure is primarily composed of air, using a double-walled inflatable system clad in printed fabric that produces a rocky trompe-l’œil effect. This technical approach significantly reduces material use, transportation impact, and intervention on the historic monument, as no permanent foundations are required.
Sustainability has been central to the project’s production, including European manufacturing, local fabrication in France using eco-certified inks free of toxic emissions, and plans for reuse or recycling of materials after dismantling.
Following its closure on June 28, the installation will be dismantled, with materials potentially reused in future projects or fully recycled, extending the artwork’s lifecycle in keeping with its temporary and responsible ethos.
With La Caverne du Pont Neuf, JR proposes a temporary transformation of Paris’s urban landscape, inviting audiences to reconsider the relationship between public art, historical memory, and contemporary collective experience.
About JR
JR (born in Paris in 1983 as Jean-René) is a street artist, photographer and filmmaker. He became famous above all for his monumental black-and-white photo collages, which he illegally affixed to building walls, border walls and public spaces. The aim of his art is to bring people together and raise awareness of social issues. Through his monumental artworks, JR invites passers-by to question and reconsider their preconceptions. After his first project, Portrait d’une Génération (2004–06), which challenged the stereotypes surrounding youth from Parisian suburbs, his scope of action expanded rapidly. He pasted portraits of Israelis and Palestinians on both sides of the separation wall (2007), the eyes of women on train cars in Kibera, Kenya (2009), and erected a giant child gazing across the border between the United States and Mexico (2017). These unusually large-scale installations share the same mission: to amplify the voices of ordinary people and spark dialogue.
JR’s artistic approach is both humanistic and unifying. From creating a trompe-l’œil at the Louvre with 400 volunteers (2019) to organizing a pasting project with incarcerated men in a maximum-security prison in California (2019), he strives to involve as many people as possible, with the goal of fostering mutual understanding and contributing to societal change. His global participatory art project Inside Out has already enabled more than 600,000 people to express themselves through large-scale black-and-white portraits.
JR’s projects explore a variety of media and artistic practices. Among his most notable achievements: a performance involving 154 dancers on a thirty-meter-high scaffolding at the Palais Garnier in Paris (2023), the Oscar-nominated documentary Visages, Villages, co-directed with Agnès Varda (2017), and a video mural examining the issue of firearms in American society, featured on the cover of Time magazine (2018). He also creates works exhibited worldwide, including at the Venice Biennale (2022), the Brooklyn Museum (2019), the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (2019), and the NGV Triennial (2020).
JR is represented by Perrotin, Galleria Continua, PAC, and Nara Roesler.
WHEN?
Exhibition dates: Saturday, 6. June until Sunday, 28. June 2026
WHERE?
Pont Neuf
75001 Paris
France
