The White Pube’s billboard campaign skewers art world inequalities

The White Pube, the art disruptors behind the online takedown of the Tate’s racist Rex Whistler mural, have written a manifesto for a fairer art world and plastered it on billboards across London and Liverpool.

Described by The White Pube’s Zarina Muhammad and Gabrielle de la Puente as “millennial Jenny Holzer, in Twitter speak, and with a very specific agenda”, the project features posters and billboards that address some of the systemic injustices and inequalities within the art world, while suggesting ways to improve them. 

The project is a part of Your Space Or Mine, a platform led by media group BUILDHOLLYWOOD. It includes suggestions such as, “Universal Basic Income and affordable housing so that everyone, including artists, can make a living” and “Curators should ask the public to see what they think galleries and museums should be used for’ and ‘dear museums, give back all stolen objects”, among others.

“I’m not naively convinced the Tate are gonna be going at the Rex Whistler Mural with a hammer and chisel any time soon, but we wanted to plop these lil aphorisms out there, as simple, feasible solutions; almost to prove how easy solutions can be if change is sincerely sought,” Muhammad told Dazed.

“They’re not finite solutions, they’re just starting points – the art world wouldn’t be fixed if those six things were reality. We chose those six because they were the easiest, the most simple ones, fully bare minimum because the bar is in hell,” she added.

The collaboration will run over three months, with the artwork changing every two weeks. Have a look at the billboards in the gallery above.