You all know that at the beginning of last year Sao Paolo banned all outdoor advertising right? That meant no billboards, no street level ads, no video screens, no window signs, no awnings. None.

Ever since I heard the “On the Media” report on the ban, I was most struck by this statement:

“And now it’s amazing. They uncovered a lot of problems the city had that we never realized. For example, there are some favelas, which are the shantytowns. I wrote a big story in my newspaper today that in a lot of parts of the city we never realized there was a big shantytown. People were shocked because they never saw that before, just because there were a lot of billboards covering the area.”

Whoa– so not only were they only seeing the ads, there was this whole issue of what they were not seeing. Of course, this really got me thinking, what are we, here in NYC (with such trashy corners as Lafayette and Houston).  And of course, where would we see the biggest impact?

Times Square of course.

I think if Creative Time let me do a “dream project” this would be it. 48 hours of Sao Paolo. I would have black-out style drapes made for all of the ads in Times Square and they would be pre-positioned. Then one Friday afternoon, they would all get dropped. Times Square would remain blacked out (advertising wise) for 48 hours.

I wouldn’t do it as a project to speak badly of the specific advertisers (Times Square is zoned as an “advertising district” and is unique in itself), but rather to see what exactly are we missing by seeing the ads and not the space between, behind and around them. I don’t think we would see favelas or sweatshops, but we might see people and places that we hadn’t noticed before.

A friend suggested that this project could be a massive tourist draw and a huge draw for residents, it could be a gates or waterfall type project! Wouldn’t you love to see Times Square without ads, even if for just one moment?

More images of an ad-less Sao Paolo from Tony De Marco on Flickr.

Larger versions of above images. For even larger, contact me.

I have about 6 minutes to write this post - something tells me I will go over that time limit. Despite the fact that I am trying to create work that gets people to stop - however briefly - and consider their relationship to their environment, I - lately - have not been able to do much of that myself. I have been extraordinarily busy through April and now May, but within the rush from one meeting to another there are some moments of real connection which fill that need to slow down. I participated in a panel discussion with Jean Shin, John Zissner and Candice Madey at the NYFA Business of Art Workshop. While there, I also was able to spend time talking to Matthew Deleget. Last night I also spoke with Julia Mandle as part of her ongoing series of dialogs, “Conspiracy of Progress.”

One of the thrilling-ly repeated themes in each of the talks was the power of the community of friends with whom you surround yourself. The network of people that you know, that network that you nurture and give to, that is what will sustain you long term as an artist. They are the people who can provide knowledge, resources and a variety of types of support. It is also with their help that you can and do achieve great things. What are you going to do? (And what am I going to do?)

Actually, another nice “slow” thing I did was planting more natives in the Whole Foods Chelsea window. The columbine & seedum are absolutely loving their home, but I am sure they will all be happy to get in the ground next week.

Julia and I had a wonderful  conversation, and are very grateful to Stephen Greco for giving his time to the discussion and for our friends who came out to listen too. Some of the things we talked about:

• how to create work on the street that rises above the commotion of advertising (subtlety or the human aspect were good)
• what it means to create artwork that has a specific point
• working with high school students and how fun that can be
• what role artists can take on in providing information & awareness
• what it means to work outside of traditional definitions of artistic disciplines

There was a lot more and it was a really enjoyable evening. Maybe what I can do is join forces with someone (Julia?) to ensure that these wonderful conversations - no matter how small or large - continue.