Plakatieren verboten!

In Regensburg there are almost only commercial poster spots. The cleaners of the city remove daily all the posters on the 'illegal spots'. The left-overs of these ripped off posters are creating a strong image that relates for me to censorship, and holding back information, and they appeared to me as a kind of victims of battle going on in the city.
I collected during three days boxes and bags full of these left-overs in the city. While cleaning these spots passers-by assisted me and clearly approved my action.

Back at the exhibitionspace I created a collage at the outside of the two big windows at the ground floor. It worked out both on the outside as on the inside as a filter. Exhibiting these left-overs tried to question the way how we perceive and receive information and the way authorities and commercial institutions filter this for us. The work refers in a direct way to the poster policy in the city and in a broader sense on media in general.

 

People reacted very strongly on this work in positive and negative sense. The work almost had to be removed within four days after the installation in order of the city hall. Some people thought the whole city centre would become a ghetto and bussiness would go down, others thought the work was even referring to the propaganda, censorship in the second world war, and to propaganda in general. In anyway the reactions led to lot's of discussion. There were people collecting signatures to keep the piece aswell to take it down. Thanks to lot's of resistance, statements, collected signatures and demonstration all initiated by inhabitants of Regenburg and surrounding the piece could stay on the facade.


There is a poster as part of the installation for sale for 1 euro (excl. postage cost)