TIM GUNN, DEFACED WITH STYLE

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Although New York DIck usually focuses it's attention on penis based poster defacements, an equally important goal is the showcasing of any sort of dickish defacement, and even the occasional defacement that is only slightly rude, perhaps even a bit interesting.

Over time a series of poster pickers, tearers and collageists have transformed a long abandoned poster from Tim Gunn's Guide to Style from a smart well tailored portrait, into an fragmented abstract collage, then piece by piece nit-picked it into a empty shadow of its former self.

Since the arrival of self adhesive vinyl posters in the New York subways the collage defacement created by cutting and tearing pieces of the poster off and repositioning them has become very common, and oddly attractive. 

A similar accidental art effect was achieved by the glue adhered posters that were standard in the pre-vinyl era. When they were ripped down a large and very abstract pattern of rips and image fragments were left behind, but since hardly anyone carries wheat paste with them impromptu collages were not possible. 

Art, advertising and society continue the march of progress and thanks to self adhesive vinyl and image preserving poster peeling a host of bored but creative subway Switters', Hochs and Heartfields now have the materials and the display space to show us that even though materials evolve they can still "Make it work" when it comes to poster defacement. NYD says thanks, and carry on.