A City-Wide Art Gallery

Abstract

In Tehran, the capital of Iran, billboards bear two parallel responsibilities with, of course, di erent directions. Some of them have commercial functions, while others transmit moral messages and religious and political slogans. In the spring of 2015, billboards in Tehran suddenly transmitted a new message. A new urban project, called “A City-wide Art Gallery”, converted Tehran into a gallery using billboards. For many people, this was “a city-wide coincidence”. This was the rst time that the municipality of Tehran allocated billboards to a topic that followed neither a commercial nor an ideological purpose. The change that the project brought about in the city’s landscape has sparked debates among citizens and experts. The present study investigates the relationship of citizens with the images displayed in this project and compares this urban-scaled movement to people’s reference to art galleries and museums. Data for this study are collected using questionnaires and interviews. According to the results, the respondents were generally satis ed with the selection of artworks and their layouts. However, the size of the artworks and the size of the subtitle letters of the images were criticized. Data analysis also shows that this program has been able to partially create a discursive space among citizens and encourage people to visit museums and art galleries.