What would a city look like, if clasical paintings replaced huge billboards -of questionable aesthetics, sometimes-, in public transport, department stores and streets? French artist Étienne Lavie wants to give a hint of what Paris and Milan would look like, via his project OMG Who stole my Ads?.
Considering Paris as a city too beautiful and romantic to be overrun by so many ads, he is replacing them with paintings, such as Delacroix’s “Liberty Leading the People” and Anne-Louis Girodet’s “The Sleep of Endymion”. In such way, he is questioning not only the development and exploitation of public space, but also the citizen’s ability to choose of what is surrounding them in their everyday lives.
The artist captured some random places in Paris and then, he replaced the ads with clasical works of art using technology. He is offering an alternative view of the city, without the ads.
The project received such acceptance, that it had a second part in Milan, called OMG Who Stole my Ads? The Milan Version.
Étienne Lavie, etiennelavie.fr/
