An Agency Painted a "Mother" Ad Over Some Iconic Sydney Street Art and Artists Are Real Mad

Apparition Media has given brandalism a new meaning.

If you live in Sydney or Melbourne, you may have seen quite a few street art advertisements pop up in the past few years. It's not an entirely new concept, but companies have been utilising Melbourne—and to a lesser extent, Sydney—street art aesthetics to sell their products. It's called "brandalism" and it's a two-headed beast.

On the one hand, it gives street artists a way of making good money (if they're paid) and getting their art style recognised. On the other hand, it takes up wall space that has traditionally been occupied by original artwork.  

Enter Apparition Media. They're one of the biggest ad agencies heading up the brandalist movement in Melbourne and Sydney and they've just gotten into a whole world of strife after painting over a famous mural in Sydney's Newtown.

The mural, painted by Colin Bebe, was much-loved by the locals. Apparition Media painted over it this week with an advertisement for an upcoming movie, Mother, featuring Jennifer Lawrence.

Mural artist, Scott Marsh, famous for painting the Kanye kissing Kanye, R.I.P Taylor Swift and Casino Mike murals (all standouts) called out Apparition Media for their disrespectful oversight.

 

I was glad to see @apparitionmedia put on blast today for painting over Colin Bebe's iconic "Its like a jungle sometimes " Mural in Newtown. This agency has a history of circumventing artists, paying property owners to paint ads over public murals.👎🏻👎🏻👎🏻 Culture vultures feeding off the fad of street art and graffiti culture while shitting on the people who created it. If they are painting your advertisements your tarred with the same brush. All your ads deserve a good dose of chrome and black. 🖕🏼🖕🏼 #culturevultures #artnotadds #norespect Link to the article in my bio

A post shared by Scott Marsh (@scottie.marsh) on Sep 7, 2017 at 12:43am PDT

Mother's director, Darren Aronofsky, found out and wasn't too pleased with the ad agency's actions either.

just read of ad agency in sydney breaking #1 graffiti rule. i'm embarrassed & furious. apologies to Bebe & I'll pay to replace piece.

— darren aronofsky (@DarrenAronofsky) September 7, 2017

Apparition Media has since apologised for the incident and committed to restoring the artwork with the original artist.

 

Today, the ad agency uploaded images of the wall painted over with blue and featuring a call-to-action for Lifeline.

 

It is the wishes of the Jungle mural artist that the attention surrounding this wall be utilized for a good cause . @lifelineaustralia has nominated themselves to be this charity. Apparition Media will continue to work with Lifeline. #lifelineforlifeline 13 11 14

A post shared by Apparition Media (@apparitionmedia) on Sep 7, 2017 at 2:13pm PDT

Just remember next time kids, don't go painting over other people's professional art. That stuff takes a lot of talent and time.

Photo: Instagram (apparitionmedia)