The Art Break

When you live in Sweden, and especially in Stockholm you get pretty pissed off when you see all the junk adds filling up our public space. The thing is that it’s illegal to put up homemade posters about live gigs, art exhibitions, theaters or other events created by non profit organizations and people. Graffiti is totally forbidden, even if you own a property you’re not allowed to decide that it is ok for young artist to paint your walls (there’s a couple of local politicians who think it’s unethical and strange to ban a whole art form so all isn’t lost).  In short terms, if there’s no money involved it’s probably bad and will lead to the degradation of our youth and should therefore be forbidden. The public space punter JCDecaux, who have been selling public space for money all over the world for decades, has a small project that put a smile on my face. They call it ‘The Art Break’ and it’s a project where they use their advertisement space to exhibit art. If all companies spent a little money on projects like this our world would be more fun to live in. The next step would be to pay street artists to exhibit their work on the advertisement pillars, I don’t think JCDecaux have the balls to do that but it would definitely be a welcomed contribution to the street art debate here inStockholm.

 http://www.jcdecaux.se/theartbreak/om-the-art-break/