TV on the Radio has been blanketing the Mission with posters for their new album—an advertising practice that’s as annoying as it is uninspired. But some artist turned one wall of ads into a street-side fish tank. Let’s hope we see more of this.
TV on the Radio has been blanketing the Mission with posters for their new album—an advertising practice that’s as annoying as it is uninspired. But some artist turned one wall of ads into a street-side fish tank. Let’s hope we see more of this.
Comments (10)
This city gives a blind eye to SOME commercial advertizing. Would folks feel the same if Chevrolet, Marlboro or Coors put flyers up all over town? Just because it’s a band, bar or club doesn’t mean it should get a pass. SFDPW needs to step up and start fining this blight.
So DPW, under the leadership of election fraud criminal Mohammed Nuru, has plenty of money to send out “graffiti inspectors” who spend all day hammering innocent property owners with tickets because of tags appearing on their property but they have no interest in stopping large corporations from defacing public and private property with illegal advertising?
Not surprising, but still: Fuck the DPW, Fuck Mohammed Nuru, and Fuck Ed Lee.
P.S. -
That is a cool piece of street art though, and I totally agree with you that it would be great to see a lot more creative subversion of advertisements like these. Go street artists!
here is a group bombing the neighborhood with orange circle sticker graffiti tags
I call on the City to criminally prosecute
The stickers are uninspiring, and have no claim to “street artist” but a ride share outfit.
Its a crew doing illegal stuff together in a coordinated way, just like a gang.
They get no empathy for unfortunate circumstances or difficult homes„.
Please let’s see some arrests on commercial sticker graffiti.
(PS, yes the fish thing is clever and nice)
What’s wrong with posters? They’re a reminder that not everyone gets all their information from Twitbookr.
some band called “pinback” spray painted stencils on sidewalks all over the inner sunset a year or so ago - they’re still there and they haven’t been fined or anything.
The person who converted the ads into fish is an artist named fnnch. Her name is on the wall there. There’s a long history of “billboard liberation” in SF, dating back to the 1970s. No idea if she did this with permission.
The orange stickers mentioned by DPclean are from sidecar. They’ve stuck them up (probably by paying hired workers) all over the City. Sidecar is a corporation that competes with Uber and Lyft. They’re worth millions. You may see the orange rearview mirror covers on their cars.
What Sidecar is doing is illegally advertising via a “guerrilla marketing”. SF has gone after IBM and other corporations for similar campaigns. The basically say “take down” or get fined for each instance and cover city costs to take down.
Many street artists and graffiti writers will destroy this fake street art. A Nintendo campaign was thoroughly destroyed by local folks about 10 years ago.
njudah…. bands have used guerrilla campaigns as well. Punk bands have stenciled cities since the 1970s. Harder to get a gov’t agency to go after these small outfits.
Way easier to catch the big fish like lame-ass Sidecar and their orange stickers…..
Contact DPW today and tell them to go after Sidecar and their street sticker campaign.
One of the most brilliant albums i’ve heard in the past couple years. The production, technical aspects, overall sound and mood are perfect. Incredible band to see live.
Someone has tagged over the fish so the cycle continues.
I wouldn’t agree that TV On The Radio is putting up these posters. The record label is putting up these posters. I’m sure that the band, like nearly every band that is signed into a big label agreement, would rather have the money spent on a more focused marketing effort. Or put into the band’s coffers to spend how they see fit. These posters are just another example of how the record labels don’t get it.