Billboard Commercial Break 2025 Exhibition - Roni Horn
Billboard Commercial Break is an annual exhibition organized by Y Gallery, Billboard and the Reykjavik Art Museum.
During the first 4 days of January, an artist selected from an open call has their work on more than 450 billboards including bus stops and kiosks across Reykjavic.
This year is the 4th edition and the winning artist is Roni Horn. Her works featuring photos of Isabelle Huppert were seen across the city.
The photos are from Roni Horn’s Portrait of an Image (with Isabelle Huppert) series from 2004.
Portrait of an Image (with Isabelle Huppert) – a series of a hundred photographic portraits of French actress Isabelle Huppert, whose face reflects a wide variety of emotions. Horn photographed the actress in twenty sequences of five photos each. In each sequence, Huppert briefly slips into one of her film characters so that her face expresses personalities that do not exist in reality but only in the film. Roni Horn’s photographs show studies of physiognomy in the finest variations in which the individual is always a plurality.
via Hauser & Wirth
Above photos are from Y Gallery’s Instagram account.
These are the winners from the past 3 years:
I really like the idea of commercial advertising billboards taken over by art at least once a year, and every city should aim to do this.
Generally, outdoor advertising is a cluttered eye sore in many cities, and recently in Dubai I found it to be even more cluttered and distracting with LED screens that have multiple advertisements rotating on one screen, still and moving images. To be able to drive or walk in this city and not feel the bombardment of advertising would be a relief. I wrote about seeing many blank billboards across Dubai during the first year of COVID-19 pandemic, which I also photographed as part of my Wonder Land series.
In 2010, Dubai Culture commissioned artists to exhibit their works on a few billboards across Dubai. It was a short term outdoor exhibition that was part of Art Dubai week and PR buzz, and only featured works by 10 seletected Emirati artists. It didn’t turn into an annual initiative as one hoped for, that could have included UAE artists of all nationalities.
As expected, there is no archive of this on Dubai Culture’s website and Google search is as good as useless these days. But I managed to find press release posted on Dubai Chronicle:
Large billboard-sized art pieces by UAE nationals will now adorn the public spaces through Dubai Culture’s novel Outdoor Art Project initiative.
Dubai Culture, the Emirate’s dedicated authority for culture, heritage and the arts, will be showcasing ten displays of art pieces by emerging Emirati talent, all of them celebrating the richness of the Emirati cultural identity.
The displays not only bring art to the public but also present interesting artistic perspectives on Dubai through the eyes of Emirati artists. In another strategic cultural shift, Dubai Culture shines the spotlight on creative expressions through new media with this Outdoor Art Project.
The works of art are being displayed in key locations across city. They include art and new media artworks by Her Highness Sheikha Lateefa Bint Maktoum Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Maitha BinDemaithan, Saeed Mohammad Al-Madani, Alia AlMalik, Zeinab Alhashemi, Fatma Saeed Saifan, Nawal Khoory, Sumayyah Al Suwaidi, Afra Bin Dhaher and Maitha Huraiz.
The 400 cm x 300 cm displays are compelling creative works, all expressions centred on life in the UAE. The inspirations are as varied as Dubai’s cultural fabric- from the evolving skyline in mixed media to abstract renditions inspired by the UAE’s heritage, and photo-art montages depicting the unique cultural identity of Dubai.