John Hamon

John Hamon (born 1982) is a French street artist known for posting his image on buildings across Paris.

Posters

Hamon began postering the image of his identity card photograph on Parisian walls in 2001. The image itself was taken in 2000, when Hamon was an eighteen-year-old high-school student. Hamon has displayed the image on monuments across the world – such as the Leaning Tower of Pisa – in 33 countries and 77 cities. For the most part, Hamon has acted as a guerilla artist postering without permission; he was once arrested for attempting to project onto Notre-Dame de Paris. He was released without charge.

Criticism Fubiz.net describes Hamon's works and performances as "amusing, and thought-provoking on the importance of promotion in modern art". Leo Mirani of The New Yorker describes Hamon as a 21st-century Kilroy. Les Inrockuptibles' Clément Arbrun, writing for A Nous Paris, sees Hamon as an "omni-present enigma" and likens him to Amélie Poulain, treating his original photo as an example of one of Duchamps ReadyMades, reusing the same image like Andy Warhol's Campbell's Soup Cans.

Awards and honours Chaton D'Or – 2018 – Prix du projet artistique (Artistic project prize)