Arte Agora Cities

Art is everywhere once you look

The fundamental element of appreciating Arte Agora is that it is absolutely everywhere you go. Once you look, you see posters, slaps, modified advertising, and people making art outside in places of density all over the world. Look and you will see.

We’re working on a new series—Arte Agora cities—where we show art from cities all over the world, detailing the particular spots, forms, methods, and artists who make each place unique. Our goal is to make it easier for you to see art once you start to look.

Arte Agora Cities image showing a swan in Serpentine Lake in Hyde Park, London.

I first started watching for art outside in the 1980s and my first focus was posters. I have a spreadsheet of every trip I’ve ever taken. It currently has 437 entries—one for every time I slept in a city other than home. For decades I’ve scoured walls, poles, and sidewalks. Here’s a poster I nabbed in Rome advertising a protest supporting Salman Rushdie after he published a book:

Poster with the text “Genocidio in Iran” and a “Manifestasione” calling for the for human rights in Iran. I’ve been honing my removal skills for a long time :-)

Another early focus was newspaper box inserts. An early example is this, from The Scotsman, during a visit to Edinburgh in August 1990:

As time went by, I kept watching for and collecting art and

Shawn-Laree O'Neil

and I eventually focused on Arte Agora— art made, sold or placed outside that is removable intact.

We're covering Rome, Paris, San Francisco, and dozens of other cities

We’ll cover public studios in SF, objects hanging in NYC, and the use of sticker poles in Berlin.

Here’s a look at iconic images from the first 10 cities we’ll be covering:

Once you spot a custom-painted sardine can attached to a streetpole with zip ties, you can’t stop looking for art. Join us.