Graffiti-bombed Venus on MIA's Titian billboard taken down

City Pages

The billboard bra causing all the hub-bub.

​Word just arrived that the graffiti-bra-bombed Venus billboard we told you about yesterday has come down and a newly naked Venus now stands in its place.

When staff over at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts got wind that their billboard advertising the Titian exhibit with a nude image of Venus was suddenly wearing clothes, they were actually amused.

Clear Channel Outdoor, the billboard company, felt very differently. The billboard depicts a bare-breasted Venus from the 16th-century Titian piece Venus Rising from the Sea, which is on display at the MIA until May. The masterpieces are on tour and are usually housed at the National Gallery of Scotland.

A marketing employee noticed that the Venus on one of the billboards in Long Lake had gone through something of a wardrobe change:

The brassiered Venus belongs to the ages now.

​

The staff at MIA actually thought the graffiti was funny and told Clear Channel to leave it up. But Susan Adams Loyd, president and general manager of Clear Channel Outdoor says it's against their policy to leave billboards up that have been vandalized.

The original billboard.

​"It's a crime and there's not anything we would do to encourage people to deface our property," she says. "One might say it's cute and funny, but it also draws attention to the fact that graffiti is a problem."

She says it's company policy to take down graffiti-ed ads and to report it to the appropriate law enforcement agency. Clear Channel has put up a fresh, newly naked Venus in the brassiered goddess' place.

MIA public relations director Anne-Marie Wagener says that the billboard would have only stayed up a couple more days and she's not too upset about it.

"It's fine, and it was amusing at the end of its run," she says.

​Previous Coverage of Prudery in Street Art:

Vagina on Beaver Sculpture Causes Controversy [PHOTO]

Gaea the Vaginal Beaver Vandalized by Prude [PHOTOS AND VIDEO]

Gaea the Vaginal Beaver Returned to Sculpture Parade [VIDEO]