After the success of the last New York Street Advertising Takeover, Public Ad Campaign’s Jordan Seiler organized another contingent of conspirators—including ANIMAL’s own Will Sherman—to liberate the mostly illegally operated NPA billboards in Manhattan and Brooklyn on Sunday. Like last time, the first wave of volunteers in nifty OSHA-approved neon vests, buffed the ad spots with white paint, followed by a second wave of artists who added their unique touches, turning the locations into temporary public canvasses and challenging the outdoor advertising company’s claims to legitimacy. Read more »

Over the weekend, we gave you firsthand accounts of the New York Street Advertising Takeover that was responsible for whitewashing 120 illegal billboards that artists then transformed into public canvasses. For many, the photos online are the only way to see the results since NPA employees quickly re-pasted their unlawful posters over the art. Much of the cynical coverage lamented how little time the whitewash and artwork lasted, in most cases less than 24 hours. However, permanency wasn’t the point, after all that’s not the nature of these locations, the wild posting business or street art for that matter. It was to highlight the extent of this illegal advertising and the city’s lack of enforcement. But even worse than listening to these armchair activists over think the action is this woeful speculation on behalf of New York magazine’s Daily Intel:
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Had Public Ad Campaign’s New York Street Advertising Takeover just finished with the whitewashing of 120 illegally NPA operated advertising locations, it certainly still would have been a success. But no, Jordan Seiler had to turn things up a notch. Once the buffers were finished painting over the ad blight, over 50 artists (of which only 1 was arrested) moved in to transform the newly created public canvasses into works of art. While my colleague was buffing the billboards, I was indiscriminately shooting the action, including the best part: the artists, who used posters, paint, and even performance art in their creative reclamations. Jump for the massive billboard-beautifying gallery.
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On Saturday, Public Ad Campaign’s Jordan Seiler organized a massive ad space takeover in Manhattan and Brooklyn. The target: NPA’s illegal outdoor billboards. They’re the main company that wheatpastes up promotional posters for various brands or what’s known in the industry as wild postings. According to Seiler, the Department of Buildings informed him that many of the locations operated by the outdoor advertising outfit are unlawful and although there’s occasional arrests, the city mostly ignores the law breaking executions. So starting around 11AM, a total of 26 whitewashers (including this very editor, shout out to Team 10: JustSeeds & AnerA), were broken into groups and provided with paint, orange worker vests, and maps. In total we covered 120 of the 132 locations planned in Chelsea, West Village, Chinatown, East Village, Lower East Side, and Williamsburg.
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