Hasta La Ideas

In a run-down area of Philadelphia, a beautiful image of a snowy landscape adorns a shabby brick wall. Why is it there? It’s all part of an intriguing new project by photographer Tim Simmons

The image used on Simmons’ mural at Green St and N 5th Street in Philadelphia, shown top

Simmons’ landscape photographs (which subscribers will remember from our February 2008 Monograph booklet) appear in various locations thorughout the city, including on an old water tower and on billboards. By infiltrating images of natural beauty into spaces normally used for advertising or into unlikely urban settings, Simmons hopes that viewers will be taken by surprise and may be prompted to think about the relationship between the natural and urban environments.

Mural at 727 N 2nd St, Philadelphia and image featured (below)

Mural at 727 N 2nd St, Philadelphia and one of the images featured (below)

Installing the mural

Mural at N American St and Poplar, Philadelphia and image used (below)

Water tower mural at N 3rd St Phialdelphia and image used (below)

A simultaneous billboard-based exhibition of more works from the series is also running in Los Angeles.

Billboards at 1520 N Cahuenga Blvd, Los Angeles

Simmons was invited to create a project by The Anthropologist, a website set up by Philadelphia-based fashion retailer Anthropologie as ‘an online space that supports the work of inspiring individuals’.

The Philadelphia arm of the project was also backed by the city’s remarkable Mural Arts Program which funds artists to transform public spaces (and which we wrote about in our January 2010 issue).

Billboards on the Delaware Expressway in Philadelphia (image used on the first one below)

CR in Print

Thanks for reading the CR Blog but if you’re not also reading the magazine in print, you’re really missing out. Our October issue includes the story of Blackpool’s Comedy Carpet, a profile of Jake Barton whose studio is currently working on the 9/11 Memorial Museum, plus pieces on branding and the art world, guerilla advertising coming of age, Google’s Android logo, Ars Electronica, adland and the riots, and loads more.

And, if you subscribe to CR, you also receive our award-winning Monograph booklet every month for free.

If you would like to buy this issue and are based in the UK, you can search for your nearest stockist here. Based outside the UK? Simply call +44(0)207 292 3703 to find your nearest stockist. Better yet, subscribe to CR for a year here and save yourself almost 30% on the printed magazine.