As free standing well placed street furniture, commercial billboards provide their own framing device for anyone who would like to communicate their message and increasingly their use in the public sphere is being debated. Billboard “takeovers” have often been the purview of “culture jammers” or “ad busters” since at least the 1970s, where the intent is to hijack the original commercial message to illuminate a social or political one. In more recent years a number of more traditional artists have been simply reclaiming this private message space as a canvas, an opportunity to display a bit of individual creativity.
OX in Troyes, France. July 2012. (photo © OX)
In new billboard takeovers from French Street Artist OX, the billboard is part of a visual conversation with its environment. Other times his geometric simplicity stands on its own without commentary but typically his ingenious incorporation of context brings the simple takeover to serve a higher purpose than drawing attention to itself. By treating the billboard as an element in a holistic field of play, a passerby may see everything around it in a new perspective, or see it for the first time. Without lecturing, this visual humorist opens the conversation about the appropriate use of public space for messages, and art.
OX in Troyes, France. July 2012. (photo © OX)
OX in Brooklyn. Spring 2010. (photo © Jaime Rojo)
OX in Brooklyn. Spring 2010. (photo © Jaime Rojo)
<<>>><><<>BSA<<>>><<<>><><BSA<<>>><><<>BSA<<>>><<<>><><BSA
Please note: All content including images and text are © BrooklynStreetArt.com, unless otherwise noted. We like sharing BSA content for non-commercial purposes as long as you credit the photographer(s) and BSA, include a link to the original article URL and do not remove the photographer’s name from the .jpg file. Otherwise, please refrain from re-posting. Thanks!
<<>>><><<>BSA<<>>><<<>><><BSA<<>>><><<>BSA<<>>><<<>><><BSA
Other Articles You May Like from BSA:
Get in, get out, no one gets hurt. Our few days in Miami were full of adventure on the street and at parties and receptions for artists. The party rages on tonight and this weekend at the fairs and i...
Street Art fans are completely familiar with the ephemeral nature of art. Sotheby’s may not be. Last night at the venerated auction house in London the performance artist and wittily cerebral Stre...
It comes as no surprise that the explosion of new graffiti in New York is evident across the river in Jersey City, where we have been hanging out the last few day for the Jersey City Mural Festiv...
Our weekly interview with the street El Coucho has a certain savoir-faire, don de gente (El Coucho) (photo Jaime Rojo) Clayton and Maybelle still remember their first blind date. (Pe...
Bilbao Spain is known for its Basque nationalism, its Basque football club, its pintxos and beer outside pubs in small streets, its Casco Viejo. It is also today closely identified with the Frank Geh...