OX

The Völklingen Ironworks flooded in red light
Copyright: Weltkulturerbe Völklinger Hütte | Oliver Dietze

Portrait OX

Portrait OX
Copyright: OX

Born in 1963 in Troyes, France
Lives and works in Bagnolet, France

Website: www.ox.com.fr

Exhibitions

Werke

No title

OX 4

OX 4
Copyright: Weltkulturerbe Völklinger Hütte / Corinna Schneider

Date

2022, in situ

Dimensions

2,55 x 3,55 m

Material

Acrylic, paper

Description

Affiche, culture jamming, ad busting, billboard hacking—there are many names for the technique of (unauthorized) work on commercial advertising space. OX, whose pseudonym can also be read—very much as intended—visually and geometrically as a circle and cross, is one of the French pioneers of this art form. He “took over” his first posters in the mid-1980s. In the meanwhile, he has mastered the genre. As a rule, the “context in which the billboard is located guides [his] graphic decisions,” OX explains: “I am interested in the landscape, the architecture, the signage, the ‘urban furniture,’ the advertising, and even the shadows.” For Urban Art Biennale 2022, by contrast, on two billboards opposite the old train station he is reflecting on the poster as medium. His collages are inspired by the “raw and random aesthetic” that results when the images and messages of commercial billboards are damaged by weather or by the destructive rage of passersby. Over the course of the Biennale, OX will placard the two billboards several times with his “torn posters” in order to “imitate in an artificial and accelerated way the appearance and disappearance of these ephemeral images.”