WE DON'T WANT ADS, WE WANT ART

(Bowery and Great Jones)

update: (IF YOU GOT HERE AFTER April 28th THE VIDEO IS ALREADY UP IN A NEWER POST)

Dear Spanish readers, forgive me but this post will be in English because I want some American friends to be able to read it (y seguro que entendéis inglés). Today was a very special day in New York. Some wonderful artists gave this city a wonderful gift: they took over about 120 billboards spread around donwntown Manhattan, painted them on white and replaced the advertisements they usually hold with art. Real art, the kind that doesn't sell products but spreads joy, curiosity, culture and smiles. Thanks to a daring team whose main brain was the guy behind Public Ad Campaign, (here a link in Spanish about him, Posterboy and Public Ad Campaign) New York became the landscape of the most fun and beautiful guerrilla- style art project I've witnessed in this city in a very long time.

(12th and 3rd Av)

Their reason wasn't only to reclaim the city walls for us, the citizens. Yes, we are all sick of the visual invasion of advertisement, specially now that the crisis is making us think about what is it really important. (Buying has finally lost its cool). As the main organizer explained to the artists who choose to get involved, the agency that owns the 'attacked' billboards operates on an illegal basis. "NPA outdoor operates over 500 street level billboards in NYC ranging in size from about 4'x4' to 50'x12'. All of these advertising structures are illegal. I found this out by talking to the NYC Department of Buildings which has no permits for the NPA outdoor structures but has its hands full dealing with the rampant illegal billboard situation. I have also spoken directly with NPA outdoor employees who have told me that the NYPD will jail them from time to time at which point NPA lawyers bail them out and they are compensated 500 dollars for the nuisance of spending the night in jail".

(1st Ave and 9th)

So, it would be nice to see the NPA structures be removed. It would be even more wonderful if the city would choose to give it to artists instead of just removing them. Any way, this guy I won't name spent the past 4 months setting up a whole day of whitewashing ads, coordinating artists and make possible a collective street art happening. It doesn't look easy to me so... big THANKS to you and your team! The Posterboy movement was involved too, of course. All of them -graphic designers, visual artists, street artists and even the owner of a store who doesn't like the overwhelming advertising landscape we live in and spent the morning whitewashing ads- risked to get arrested, actually two of them spent the night in jail. They were the only casualties of the day, everything else worked smoothly, with a final party in Brooklyn. ( The brains and creativity left the island long time ago and now breath and think in Brooklyn, Manhattan it's only a storefront to the world, so they cross the bridges to show the world what they do, then they go back to Brooklyn to chill)

(Bowery and 5th)

Their art won't last, the NPA will kill this amazing pieces in a blink but, as one of the artists said to me at the afterparty, "art is about the experience, about living the moment, and what we did was so fucking great for New York that even if they take down our pieces we have learnt that we can do it and we will do it again. New yorkers had fun today in a very unusual way. It's priceless!"

I will be posting a video and a multimedia piece later today. Stay tuned! In the meantime, a few picks I took during the day.

(Kenmare st and Elisabeth)

(Bowery and 4th st)


Avenue A and 11th
Avenue A and 11th

Broome and Christie

MY VIDEO ABOUT THE EVENT HERE