The street art collective known as "Poster Boy" tweaks corporate copy on subway platform billboards and posters, replacing it with incisive and playful puns and turns of phrase rich with innuendo and political punch. Poster Boy's cut and slash mash-ups only exist in New York City, but the artful, funny appropriations of advertising and social commentary have received global attention. In Poster Boy: The War of Art, Mark Batty Publisher collects some of the most eye-catching and controversial pieces of this art from around the city.
The New York Times dubbed Poster Boy an "anti-consumerist Zorro with a razor blade, a sense of humor and a talent for collage"; the Guardian UK said of the work, it "is witty, web-savvy and economical...and the only materials it requires are chutzpah, imagination and a 50 cent blade."
From overhauling a Snickers billboard to give Noam "Chompsky" props to a beheaded Calvin Klein Jeans model and collaborations with Princess Hijab, Decapitator and Aakash Nihalani, Poster Boy draws attention to the misleading nature of advertising by creating anti-establishment sentiments that passersby can't help but notice.
As the Poster Boy manifesto states: "More important than the longevity and popularity of the art, or vandalism, is what Poster Boy stands for: understanding the difference between what is legal and what is right."
