Billboard Hijack in Hollywood
With projections and QR codes capturing the fancy of the out of door advertising world, it’s kind of retro to see subtle repurposing of messaging via good old wheatpaste and paint. In the tradition of Billboard Liberation Front, (a collective old enough to be their parents probably), LA Street Art collective Desire Obtain Cherish did a bit of message adjusting recently that actually ran for weeks in Los Angeles. Rather than culture jamming or anti-corporate messaging in an activist vein however, the billboard features their name – in effect making one ad into another.
Relative Street Art startups, the DOC have been outdoor wallpapering with blocked bold lettered black and white wheat pastes a la Revs/COST, a Marilyn wigged gas-masked militia officer, and staged public “installations” roped off on the street with branded police tape. This custom color-matched billboard takeover is just the kind of work that makes advertisers nervous because of it’s subtlety. As street art and advertising techniques continue to go mainstream and become arrows in the quivers of a generation of artists, it’s going to be even more confounding to know what the message really is, and who it’s from.
Desire Obtain Cherish
Desire Obtain Cherish
All images copyright Desire Obtain Cherish
Other Articles You May Like from BSA:
Welcome to BSA Images of the Week! April showers, babe. That's what we have been experiencing. Yes, that means we get May flowers. It's a whole system, see? Congratulations for our new Supr...
Positioned as an ironic truth-teller with a sense of humor, Portuguese visual artist, illustrator, and street Artist Wasted Rita uses her droll texts and lo-fi illustrations to skewer societal and st...
Every city has its own particular energy; it’s own articulated rhythm, its own unique chaos. Mexico City's is full of flourish and aspiration and fascination for the international new, while firmly r...
Our weekly focus on the moving image and art in the streets. And other oddities. Now screening : 1. Swoon: Fearless BSA Special Feature: Swoon: Fearless Using existing and new footage of S...
"Abitare" (To Live In) Italian Street Artist and urban interventionist Gola Hundun is often thinking about the idea of coexistence and cohabitation between humans and the rest of the natural world....