Reverse Grafiti Advertising

Here’s a werid story about a guy who sells ads to companies and puts those ads on grafiti covered walls by stenciling in some sort of paint remover. He cleans a spray painted wall in certain places to form an image or a logo.

The Yorkshire graffiti artist known universally as Moose has what he believes is a cast-iron defence against accusations of urban vandalism.

He has devised a brand of street art which not only livens up city streets, but removes grime in the process. His method is to take any dirty inner-city wall or pavement, place a template over it and scrub the concrete clean, revealing an image as sharp as any spray paint which fades with time.

The artist’s labours have brought in contracts from companies as diverse as Microsoft, Channel 4 and the drinks giant Diageo, and created art in improbable places – from Edinburgh signposts to London’s Blackwall Tunnel. But the graffiti has pitched him into a legal spat with municipal leaders in Leeds, where he is based.

Much to the indignation of the artist’s corporate clients, Leeds City Council demanded the “clean-up” of a piece of graffiti promoting Diageo’s Smirnoff vodka in one of the municipality’s gloomiest underpasses.

What an awesome idea.