BSkyB are planning a national advertising campaign for Sky Arts, with the help of photographer Rankin.
Sky Arts and Rankin will transform selected streets in six large cities into “the biggest gallery in Britain”.
The campaign, called Sky Arts Street Galleries, aims to help raise the profile of Sky Arts as a credible cultural channel.
Images of artists and performers will be posted on every billboard, poster, bus stop and phone box on chosen main streets in Birmingham, Edinburgh, Liverpool, London, Manchester, and Newcastle.
Rankin has produced 16 images, with each representing a different form of art.
One of these images is of artist Meredith Ostrom, naked and covered in paint, as her technique involves painting on canvas using only the naked body. Another ad shows dancer Natasha Cudilla on her hands and knees wearing a black dress.
As part of the campaign, a behind-the-scenes documentary called Rankin: Sky Arts Street Galleries will be shown tonight.
Sky Arts launched in 2007, and has recently tried to raise its profile. It has signed programmes such as Melvynn Bragg’s South Bank Show, and will soon be showing adaptations of Chekhov plays, along with a Gilbert and Sullivan season.
