Postering was like performance on the street for Publicit? Sauvage ...

The days of the cops always on our backs are long over for Baudoin Wart and Publicit? Sauvage, the company he founded 25 years ago to advertise cultural events by gluing posters on construction fences.

Until 1994, postering was against the law. Wart and the people he hired had to be on constant lookout for police.

We had to work fast, Wart said in an interview. One person, the checker, would watch for police and yell Leo if they were coming. It was a performance on the street, he said of their narrow escapes, burdened by posters and glue.

Publicit Sauvage went legitimate in 1994. Wart, with the support of 60 cultural organizations and a reputation for cleaning up its worksites negotiated a deal with the city that allowed signs where permitted by property owners.

So legitimate are Wart and Publicit Sauvage today that in May, the Board of Trade of Metropolitan Montreal awarded his company its Prix Arts-Affaires for small and medium size enterprises. The Board commended Wart for helping its clients mostly cultural groups devise advertising campaigns.. It also noted Warts his sense of history: He now has one of the largest private collections with over 40,000 posters that testify to Quebecs graphical and artistic evolution.

From this archive, which includes two or three copies of all but the earliest posters, a design professor at UQAM organized a yearlong series of 15 exhibitions.

Marc Choko said he chose about 750 posters based on the quality of their graphic design and the importance of the event. Every aspect of Montreals civic and cultural life is represented, he said.

The exhibitions began in January with concert posters at the Foufounes lectiques and will end with a show of Chokos choices of best poster for each of the 25 years. That exhibition opens Nov. 12 at UQAMs school of design.

Two exhibitions close soon: one of 35 posters advertising theatre, dance, opera and music events at Place des Arts ends Aug. 31, and a display of 45 circus posters at TOHU closes Sept. 4.

The next one to open is outdoors on Sept. 1, in the area known the Promenade des artistes behind Place des Arts, between President Kennedy Ave. and de Maisonneuve Blvd. This exhibition will have 100 posters of festivals and other cultural events that have taken place in the heart of downtown.

Three more exhibitions open next month: at the Bibliothque national on Sept. 11, at Publicit Sauvages headquarters on Frontenac St. on Sept. 20, and at Complexe Desjardins on Sept. 28.

Each exhibition has its own poster designed by one of the citys top graphic artists, and most are accompanied by special events. On Sept. 29, during the annual Journes de la culture, Choko will lead a discussion at Publicit Sauvage with some of the artists. Members of the staff will demonstrate poster hanging.

Warts staff numbers more than 30, including 11 who service 1,100 stores and restaurants, four who distribute flyers and eight who install and remove outdoor posters seven days a week.

Some posters are mounted on boards and put on metal fences at construction sites where workers might tear them down. Wart counters that possibility by installing the posters on Friday evenings and taking them down on Sunday nights. The posters get the maximum impact of a weekend, he said.

We find owners, make the arrangements and build the fences for free, he said. We clean up before and after.

Publicit Sauvage hasnt designed posters since its earliest days. There was too much competition, Wart said. Were just the distributor.

But what a distributor! Many of the people who distribute the posters are artists and musicians, Wart said. Poster hanger alumni include two members of Karkwa, who turned the place into a studio, Wart said. I want people to enjoy their work.

Isabelle Jalbert, general manager of the company, said that when she started working, Warts drums were on the premises, and sometimes people would play them. What a place to work, I thought.

The artists can think about their own creations on the job, she said. If they go on tour, we can replace them for a month until they get back. Theyre proud to work for Publicit Sauvage.

Salaries are low, Wart admitted, but there are lots of free tickets for employees and clients, he said. And the clients, mostly cultural organizations, get the benefits: Wart said it might cost $1.85 (the price varies with the size of the sign) to put a poster in a store for two weeks, less than five per cent of what it might cost for an advertisement over a urinal in a bar.

Wart said he played drums and did video performances when he was younger, but painting is now his creative outlet. He plans two shows of his paintings in cafs this fall, dates and places to be confirmed.

For more info, go to publicite-sauvage.com.

? Copyright (c) The Montreal Gazette

Source: http://www.montrealgazette.com/Twenty+five+years+plastering+city/7134147/story.html

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