This article was published on April 3, 2012

Bus-Tops the London LED art show offers free exhibition space to the eagle-eyed


Bus-Tops the London LED art show offers free exhibition space to the eagle-eyed

Bus-Tops, the collaborative public art installation across 20 London boroughs has installed 30 red and black LED screens on the rooves of bus shelters. So the best place to see the screens is from the top deck of a bus.

It’s come a long way since we covered the launch back in 2009 and now anyone in the world can create artwork for the LED screens. Along with art created by the public, the organisation also selects artists to display specific works and projects.

The latest project that will run throughout April not only highlights the work of Jasmina Cibic but also provides an opportunity for anyone to create an exhibition. Her project is rather aptly titled, “No Experience Necessary”.

Cibic is using Bus-Tops to display 31 passwords in ten of the locations around London (you can find clues here). Collect 5 of the codes and submit them on Cibic’s website to go into a draw to win some gallery space of your own.

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What makes an artist?

The point of the exercise is not just the fun of hunting the Bus-Tops but also a comment on who can be an artist. Cibic’s work offers the chance for anyone to create a solo exhibition at the new project space Waddington Studios Projects in London in January 2013.

Bus-tops originator Alfie Dennan is delighted by the latest project. He says,

“One of the fundamental ideas that we are exploring with Bus-Tops is to assert that it is the desire to create which makes someone an artist. If someone creates something for the screens and sends it in, does that make them an artist? We don’t know any better than probably they do, which is what makes it such an interesting question to debate.

Jasmina’s project plays expertly with this ongoing debate in art and so kind of pokes fun at one of our basic precepts. Not only that, it also pokes fun at the international art scene and the focus on getting your first solo gallery show.

The visual language she uses is also really funny and tongue in cheek in your face which works just so amazingly on the screens. At the end of it all though, someone is going to win an amazing gallery show.”

Submissions must be entered before midday June 30th. So charge your Oyster card and have a look at London from a different perspective while you consider what your solo art show should be about.

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