An art gallery which gatecrashes the public space by means of advertising displays. That is the passion-driven project launched during the summer of 2022 by Mathieu France. An entrepreneur in the billboard display sector since the age of 22, he observed his profession evolve during the pandemic. ‘I realised that my mission in life was to colour that of others in extraordinary ways,’ explains the entrepreneur.

Mediafield, his billboard display company, already specialised in large advertising hoardings. Including hand-painted frescoes, such as the one which occupies an entire flank of an apartment block on the way out of Brussels, along the Herrmann-Debroux viaduct. ‘People react very positively to art in marketing; so, I wondered why not simply bring art, without the commercial aspect, into digital billboards?’ explains Mathieu France. ‘People are at a bus stop, at a red light in a car, and whilst they are there, they are looking at an advertising hoarding, but instead of an advert, it’s a work of art, which might affect them in some way. In a way, we are bringing art outside of the exhibition venues.’

Art in public spaces, from Brussels to Times Square

A shrewd idea was the genesis of the project: why not contact various billboard display companies in Belgium and suggest using their unsold spaces to display works of art?

Artcrush Gallery set out to unearth artists on X/Twitter. The first call for projects offered the artists selected the opportunity to be displayed on a wall of the Gare du Midi train station in Brussels. The call immediately went viral and the experiment was repeated in Ghent, and then via billboard display companies in Times Square, as well as in Japan.

In 2023 the project underwent a significant step change. Between April and November, Artcrush Gallery launched a world tour during which 50 artists were exhibited across 10 cities, such as Melbourne, London, Lagos, Miami and Tokyo. This global tour not only succeeded in promoting emerging artists such as Laurent Castellani, Farrah Carbonell and Bongdoe (to only mention three of them), but also enriched the public space of the participating cities by offering passers-by original artistic experiences. The exhibitors are for the most part steeped in the digital arts, but all types of artists can be exhibited, be their art digital or physical.

Since then, Artcrush Gallery has signed agreements with billboard display companies on the five continents, such as Clear Channel in Belgium and oOh!media in Australia. These partnerships today offer continuous visibility to 800 artists exhibited by the gallery since its opening. 

My mission in life is to colour that of others in extraordinary ways.

Mathieu France

Art, genuinely accessible to all

One of the strengths of the business model implemented by Artcrush Gallery is the difference in the costs of exhibiting in comparison with a physical gallery. ‘Because the hoardings do not belong to us, we do not ask for payment for their use,’ points out Mathieu France, ‘which allows us to sell our exhibitions at a tenth of the price.’ The costs incurred by the clients thus cover the formatting of the files to be exhibited and the video reportage produced with the social networks in mind.

And therein lies the whole power of a gallery which defies the borders: if you exhibit at Artcrush Gallery, you go beyond the confinement of a fixed space to reach out to a wider public which would not necessarily make their way into an art gallery. ‘Private bodies, but also public ones, such as embassies, may be interested in showcasing artists from their countries,’ the entrepreneur illustrates. ‘We can thus hold local, regional or global exhibitions with an impact which may be tenfold thanks to the billboards.’

This impact is guaranteed by Artcrush Gallery. Each day, the works exhibited are viewed by an estimated roughly 2 million people, who would otherwise not go to a museum or to a gallery. In addition to its network of 1,300 screens active on a daily basis, it possesses the necessary contacts to have access to approximately 100,000 hoardings across the entire planet, should a gallery wish to exhibit one or several of its artists internationally. 

In addition to the visibility on the streets and in public buildings, Artcrush Gallery produces video reportages of the works exhibited so that the client may communicate on the social networks. Through these initiatives, the objective is clear: to take art to where the people are and thereby develop their interest and their curiosity about the world of art.

Artcrush, close to the people, but also interactive

At the end of the month of May, Artcrush Gallery finally inaugurated its first physical gallery at the heart of the capital, in Ixelles. In it can be discovered the physical and digital artworks of the artists who had previously been exhibited on the advertising hoardings. Artcrush Gallery is nevertheless a gallery like no other. To celebrate the opening of the Ixelles space, it organised a treasure hunt across the country.

The team of Artcrush curators, led by Brian Beccafico, selected seven Brussels artists from a diversity of backgrounds, whose works were exhibited by means of 1,000 advertising screens, working in tandem with Clear Channel and its #PlatformForArt initiative.

Each day for an entire week, the participants could embark on the discovery of their town to collect a digital version of the different works, hidden in the public space amongst the advertising hoardings. Armed with their telephones and an account with Artcrush Gallery, they could scan the found work and ask for a free-of-charge digital version of it. At the end of the week, those who had collected three works or more could win a weekend at the 2024 La Biennale di Venezia.

Through the display panels, Artcrush Gallery creates a window, an invitation to open oneself up to the world of art. The goal of the physical gallery, for its part, is to allow those interested to make a longer experience of it. The two thereby operate in symbiosis, the one leading people to take an interest in the other… and vice versa.

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