The Streets : For The People By The People

As we mentioned, On Sunday Oct. 25th, a large group of activists, artists, and folks who came from far and wide (we met artists and whitewashers from Los Angeles, Seattle and even Toronto) all came together to reclaim the New York City streets back from illegal advertising from NPA Advertising. NPA is a company who operates as an advertising billboard company that wheatpastes movie posters in over 500 locations across the city and spreads wider yearly.

On Sunday, artists across the scene came together to whitewash these illegal billboards and give something back to the city. Each artist used the newly whitewashed space to give some free art back to the public. Not only did the white canvas draw attention from the public who grew so immune to seeing ads on their block day in and day out, but to give them some art gave them the beauty to enjoy a gorgeous Sunday outside their home and feel like their own block is special. That is something NPA can never achieve.

Jordan Seiler, an Abztract featured artist but most importantly, started Public Ad Campaign which brings a great deal of attention as to how the illegal advertising is taking over the public spaces across the world and how sometimes (much like on Oct. 25th), the public has to take action to its own hands.

Below is a collection of some of the work that only a small percentage of artists put up. The NPA company (along with some NYPD officers) hit the streets hard. 5 arrests were made that day but the project was a huge success getting a ton of attention across the internet including New York Times. NPA already covered all of the artwork with new advertisements and the whitewashed canvases are now only a memory from yesterdays past. But the battle will go on. This is only the second time NYSAT was put on and it hit NPA and their operations harder then the first time. Fret not as we are sure many more takeovers are to come in the future.

For now, enjoy the images below for they will be on websites for years to come and THAT is something NPA can never repost new posters over.

Make sure to click on the links below to the photographers Flickr pages to see these in full size along with other images not shown here.

Images courtesy of Luna Park, Sabeth718, Unurth, Gaia

Posterchild

Beth Whitney @ Meatpacking District

Monty Burns takes on Bloomberg

Gaia

Gaia

Royce Bannon

Sir. Dickchicken

Moses Says

Mexican Wrestlers

Royce Bannon and Friends

SERF & MINT do a BUFF BUM (a photo of an actual NPA employee)