Transparent Street Signs by Cayetano Ferrer.

• Fabian
  June 10th, 2006 at 4:43 pm

  And he does not get in trouble for painting over city signs?

• Ted
  June 10th, 2006 at 5:42 pm

  Looks more like they’re photoshopped.
  You could do it easily with layers.

• abbot
  June 10th, 2006 at 8:17 pm

  “And he does not get in trouble for painting over city signs?’

  It’s street art, so it’s technically illegal. It is probably a big sticker rather than painting directly on the sign. He’s not the first person to do it. The artists in the Urban Bloods collective out of France do the same thing but with huge billboards. Here is their website. http://urblooz.free.fr/

• abbot
  June 10th, 2006 at 8:20 pm

  by the way. the photo you guys chose is one that illustrates how the sign doesn’t match up with the background if viewed from the wrong angle. this is the correct one. http://www.cayetanoferrer.com/city_of_chicago/images/pages/image04.htm

• Alex
  June 11th, 2006 at 12:39 pm

  Thanks abbot - I’ve fixed the photo. Cayetanno Ferrer’s “transparent” street art is probably one of the most interesting street arts I’ve seen in a while.

  For those who like the Urban Bloods collective, check out the “subversive” Art Not Oil, as featured in Neatorama before.

• Rin
  June 11th, 2006 at 6:17 pm

  Photoshop poor job.

  Idear is nice

• pat
  June 11th, 2006 at 9:01 pm

  As Abbot said, if you read a lil bit on the site, it’s not painted onto the sign, it’s a sticker posted over the sign and you can see the sticker peeling off in

• BG
  June 12th, 2006 at 6:17 pm

  This f(art) sucks.

  Defacing civic information that informs the public of civil laws is lame.

  Critics might agree when the day comes that their car is towed or ticketed, or when they miss a ccritical turn to a hospital, or fail to stop and run into traffic, all to further some lame-brains resume.

  These signs are posted for broader reasons other than an individuals vanity.

  sheez what a putz.

• JM
  June 12th, 2006 at 7:39 pm

  it’s not photoshopped, i know this guy and he’s been doing this for years.

• BG
  June 13th, 2006 at 7:48 am

  Yeah -years, and so played out.

  Single viewpoint/vantage, f(art)works -staged for the photograph and/or to position the ‘audience’ in a set place, at a set time.

  Lots of flexibility of interpretation there eh? If were to spon a political movement would it be a Dictatorship?

• Ted
  June 13th, 2006 at 11:29 am

  Still looks photoshopped to me.
  It would be more socially responsible if it were a fake picture.
  It would be easy to photoshop a “peeling” edge, as well. Not that I don’t believe that someone could take a picture of the tree, print it on a label, and stick it on a sign. Just that it would be a lot easier to fake the picture, and then pretend that you were defacing public property.
  All in all, an unusual idea, but kind of limited in scope. He should have made a transparent plexiglass sign with the same info as the original sign, and then replaced it. That way, it would work from a lot wider angle.

• Max
  June 13th, 2006 at 1:07 pm

  Good point Ted, this kind of stuff reminds me of dopes that go around giving people “happy slaps”, all in their -good fun.

  The spon, that’s funny.

  “We just wanted to spray something because we knew it could be cleaned up.”

  [Just like Mommy did when he did a doodie?]

  “…it was one of the minor things we could do.”

  [Making people clean up after them; a portrait of a USER, future conspicuous consumer, and general pain in the arse. ]

  http://www.todaystmj4.com/_content/news/topstories/story_3019.asp

• Max
  June 13th, 2006 at 1:24 pm

  Let me restate the edited note…

  This is a pertinent addition to this work, and discussion.
  http://www.todaystmj4.com/_content/news/topstories/story_3019.asp

  The gentelman in the news link is quoted as saying.
  “We just wanted to spray something because we knew it could be cleaned up… So we thought it was one of the minor things we could do.”

  Have others clean up after them?

  Charming.

• cayetano
  June 29th, 2006 at 12:49 pm

  “Critics might agree when the day comes that their car is towed or ticketed, or when they miss a ccritical turn to a hospital, or fail to stop and run into traffic, all to further some lame-brains resume.”

  these are all done on no parking signs. no stop signs or other critical traffic signs were defaced, and trust me, no one’s car is going to get towed. stop blowing the slight inconvenience of this act out of proportion, its boring me to death. and if you could let me know how doing this could go on a resume, please enlighten us.

  “Single viewpoint/vantage, f(art)works -staged for the photograph and/or to position the ‘audience’ in a set place, at a set time.”

  so what? arent we separated enough from our physical environments by the simulacra of mass media? Like anything else, these images couldnt resist been absorbed by it, but they only did months after the stickers themselves were weathered and stripped from the signs. I like that the real audience was extremely limited… these documentations are just leftovers.

  “Still looks photoshopped to me.
  It would be more socially responsible if it were a fake picture.
  It would be easy to photoshop a “peeling” edge, as well… All in all, an unusual idea, but kind of limited in scope. He should have made a transparent plexiglass sign with the same info as the original sign, and then replaced it. That way, it would work from a lot wider angle.”

  Give me a break… are you really so at home with simulations that doing this in photoshop would have the same effect? And where is the social responsibility with your suggestion of changing the sign with plexiglass… it seems similarly destructive, without the magic.

  An important part of this piece is about a kind of silent interconnection in our physical space. That someone would have to stand exactly where the photographer stood to match the image up is amazing to me. If only one person took the time to do that I think the piece is a success… the internet is only good for people to anonymously talk shit and for people like me to get defensive about it.

  I’m not even going to respond to whoever compared this to satanic graffiti. That was a pretty funny link though…

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