/>While not as clandestine as Kaws,  musician David Byrne is the artist behind a
series of enigmatic posters that have recently appeared in transit shelters on
Queen Street West in Toronto. Titled “The New Sins,” Byrne’s work (12 pieces in
all) are part of the CONTACT Toronto
Photography Festival, and will be up on the streets until the end of this
month.

Originally created for the Valencia Biennale in 2001, the New
Sins were part of a small bible that was placed anonymously in hotel rooms.
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Byrne explains the project href="http://www.davidbyrne.com/art/new_sins/index.php">on his website (also
the place where we nicked the photos):

“I did this
installation once before, in Sydney, where I thought it worked very well. By
that I mean that I could witness people actually stopping to read the pieces, I
could see them scratching their heads or chuckling to themselves, and my name
was either so small or so tiny that the work became almost anonymous, an issue
that is fairly integral to the work for some of these public things.

/>I told Malu that my name would be on these, but really really small, and she
didn’t understand. If you’ve done something why not be proud of it and let
everyone know? They will be in bus shelter lightboxes around the city center.
Since most of the time these lightboxes are filled with ads it will naturally be
first assumed, unless otherwise announced, that these are ads too. I feel that
if it is revealed right away that these are artworks they would immediately lose
some of their power to amuse and to puzzle. Nobody actually puzzles over an
artwork - by declaring itself art it is allowed to be as wacko, egocentric and
obtuse as it wants to be. The excuse is that it is art. So it penetrates no
deeper than that. “Oh, another waste of the public’s money” or “Oh, those nutty
artists” is what many people will instantly think. I would rather keep the arty
connection under wraps for at least a moment in order to allow the thing to not
be so easily justified or explained.

Probably for the same reason I
often do these things in somewhat imitation of the thing that are normally in
that place. While these particular ones look more like the paid propaganda of
some fringe religious cult, I often design these things to imitate the graphic
style of contemporary advertising or signage. So at first it probably gets taken
as the ravings of a pastor gone slightly round the bend or as an advertising
teaser campaign, as there is no product visible. This, to me, is good. It both
raises the question of what normally goes in that space, and why, and what is
this other thing, and why. There might, for some people, be a slight
disjunction, as advertising platforms become such a part of the visual
environment that we don’t give them a second thought. We almost don’t even see
them any more - though I believe their images and messages still penetrate. It
is the act of them being there, a presence in the street or elsewhere, that is
taken for granted to the point to where they become partly invisible. So maybe
by making something that is similar, but not quite the same, these pieces and
other similar ones will draw attention to the process, the things, and what they
are usually used for.

Well we’ll see.”

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