Paintings and poems for empty billboard sites

From a letter to the Institute.

All billboard companies have some degree of wastage in the beginning of the year when the Christmas rush is over. In many cases these empty sites are covered over with grey paper to stop the clients who had previously hired them getting advertising they haven't paid for and generally so as to maintain an orderly appearance.

I approached billboard companies with mock-ups of potential paintings and poems to be displayed on these empty sites and, as long as they conformed to the Advertising Standard Authority's rules, the reception I got to my idea was generally very positive. The industry's attitude was that anything that can give the industry a better name could only be a good thing, as it is, to some degree, blamed for our worsening visual enviroment. In all I painted 10 billboards that were displayed around Greater London for between one and two months.

Before I left Britain to live in Denmark I had started work on a idea to develop the project's possibilities. The grey paper (known as greyback) used in the lean months to cover the panels is kept in the depots where the posters themselves are stored and it could easily be distributed to artists in the preceeding year, returned to the poster depot with a painting on it, and when a site becomes vacant be hung as a painting. This would of course involve some measure of coordination in the beginning with the selection of artists and approval of the images but because covering with greyback is in principle the same as a poster, the major problem of distribution is overcome. The greyback, despite its name, also has a white side that readily absorbs house emulsion and artist's acrylic colours so one is not limited in the tonal range in the painting. Special paint types should nevertheless be checked to see if they are waterproof and elastic as the sheets go through a wet rolling process first.

Barnabas Wetton, Ny Munkegade 11, 8000 Arhus C, Denmark.