Born in 1956 in Santiago, Chile, Jaar lived with his family in Martinique from the age of five to 15 and is now based in New York. Always thoughtfully researched and often with community cooperation, Jaar’s projects bear witness to inequalities and injustices around the world such as toxic pollution in Nigeria, gold mining in Brazil and genocide in Rwanda.
Jaar’s work has been exhibited extensively around the world and he has participated in the Venice and Sao Paulo Biennales numerous times since the 1980s, as well as Documenta in 1987 and 2002. Alongside many solo exhibitions, he has realised over 60 public interventions around the world and his work is held in important collections including the Guggenheim Museum, New York, the MCA in Chicago, and Tate, London. He became a Guggenheim Fellow in 1985 and a MacArthur Fellow in 2000.