As we walk down the street, a flood of information greets us. From billboards to street signs to posters, physical forms of communication fight for our attention. This communication, however, is typically one-sided. Poster House‘s newest exhibition, Masked Vigilantes On Silent Motorbikes, captures how artists have attempted to continue the conversation by turning public posters into art.
On September 15, Untapped New York Insiders are invited to join a members-only tour of the exhibition Masked Vigilantes on Silent Motorbikes with guide Tim Medland. Featuring the work of 20 artists from the 1960s to the present day, this show highlights the ways they have appropriated poster imagery, inviting audiences to reconsider the social and historical narratives that posters participate in. The event is free for Untapped New York Insiders (get your first month free with code JOINUS).
Tour the New Poster House Exhibition
On the tour, you will see rarely-viewed works by artists including KAWS, David Wojnarowicz, Jaques Villeglé, and other legendary figures, as well as pieces by contemporary street artists like Jilly Ballistic and FAUST. While exploring advertising posters as material that can be used to create art, you will discover how these artists take advertisements from the street, reinterpreting and reconfiguring them to critique, subvert, and occasionally praise modern consumerist culture. Finally, you will visit the site-specific installation for the exhibition created by the anonymous collective Poster Boy.
On view until February 12, 2023, Poster House‘s exhibition features posters that “reflect and shape popular culture.” The art in the exhibition is the product of the minds of many artists hoping to add to the conversation by addition, subtraction, or division. Some of the works include a collage made of posters, a modified poster of Domino Sugar, a woman with reptilian hands wrapping around her, and more.
The curator of Masked Vigilantes on Silent Motorbikes, RJ Rushmore, specializes in projects that he deems will “disrupt visual culture.” In addition to founding the public art campaign Art in Ad Places, which aims to add art to advertisements on payphones, he is broadly recognized as a graffiti artist,
In the past, Poster House produced exhibitions about Soviet film posters of the 1920s, posters advertising movies made in the early 20th century for women and by women, and more. The exhibition The Utopian Avant-Garde: Soviet Film Posters of the 1920s is on view until August 21, 2022, so you can catch it before it closes if you visit the museum in the weeks preceding the Insiders’ tour.
To dive into the world of posters repurposed as art, join Untapped New York Insiders on September 15 for an exclusive tour of the exhibition.
Tour the New Poster House Exhibition
Next, check out the 8 best public art installations to see in August 2022!