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Yesterday, the Public Ad Campaign coordinated teams of people to whitewash illegal outdoor street-level billboards in Manhattan. Though many outdoor ads (also known as "wild postings") are illegal, the Department of Buildings also says it has its hands full fighting many instances of illegal billboards—hence the volunteer effort.
All of the people were give supplies like paint, buckets, rollers and construction vests—including "a formal letter from Citizens Against Urban Blight, stating that they are participating the city approved removal of illegal outdoor advertisements run by NPA, until further structural removal can be coordinated." ANIMAL NEW YORK's Bucky Turco was in one of the teams; he reports they started around 11AM:
In total we covered 120 of the 132 locations planned from Soho to Chelsea...The newly whitewashed spaces were also an opportunity for some creativity—Wooster Collective says over 80 artists added flair to the now blank canvases. And Seiler is no stranger to reclaiming ad space.A second wave of approximately 46 artists—whom will be named later—then moved into to take advantage and beautify the newly created public canvasses. Unfortunately, every battle has its casualties, and one team of buffers was arrested. But overall, Seiler was happy with the outcome: “It was a complete success and we’ll be fighting the arrests in court.”
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RECLAIMING THE PUBLIC SPACE!!!!
GREAT PROJECT!!!
hopefully the mob wont come after them. lol.
i saw the enjoy... guys on houston and mulberry putting their work up.
just a second - am i reading this correctly?
they're whitewashing the illegal advertising and then replacing it with illegal art?
what makes them more entitled to the space?
Yeah, don't you just love the hypocrisy of the "street artists"? It's almost as laughable as the times when some graf writer gets all bent out of shape because some other tagger painted over his "work." And personally, I found the ads to be more interesting than the crap they replaced them with.
Splasher, where are you in our time of greatest need?
no one is more entitled the space. i think thats the point. or, there is no point.
the ads are illegal, the art is illegal. i think the post just points out what happened. verse who has the right to what. though i would find it hard to believe people would rather have illegal advertising, then illegal art. but i could be wrong.
Great, new clean space for society's miscreants to spray paint their retarded tags onto.
The advertisers are breaking laws to make money, the artists are breaking laws for the benefit of the public.
it. If we're going to be subjected to illegal ads and corporate guerilla marketing disguised as graffiti then god bless these guys. What the property owners don't realize is that in the long-term, compelling public art will enhance the value of their real estate far more then ugly billboards.
Wow, talk about delusions of grandeur. Not even the acknowledged masters like Gaugin, Picasso or Monet went around vandalizing private property while spouting the conceit that they're educating and entertaining the unwashed masses and enriching the property owners. Get over yourselves. But I expect no better from someone who obviously values graffiti enough to use it in his avatar.
If the only great artist you can reference is Picasso and Monet (which i both love), you really need to crawl from underneath the huge rock and brush up on your art history. How about, Kieth Haring, Basquiate, Barry McGee, Kaws, Espo, Banksy, Faile, Swoon, WK just to name a few. Art has no limitations whether its on a rock, a wall or a canvas.
Picasso loved graffiti, thats why he collabrated with Brassai on a book called "graffiti" in the late 50's
I'm feeling this...its not like we really need another ipod billboard anyway. Art benefits the public far more than advertising and historically the public realm has been one of the most powerful venues for communication - from Martin Luther to Banksy and everyone in between..Keep it up guys - take back the streets!