Bibliothèque nationale to preserve posters

Montreal’s posters are finally getting the respect they deserve. It was just announced that the Bibliothèque et Archives nationales du Québec will work in collaboration with Publicité sauvage, an ad agency that specializes in commercial postering, to preserve two copies of every poster it creates. Kollectif has the full announcement:

“Publicité Sauvage et Bibliothèque et Archives nationales du Québec (BAnQ) ont signé un partenariat pour conserver les affiches en tant que trace de l’histoire culturelle de Montréal.

Depuis octobre, Publicité Sauvage remet à BAnQ deux exemplaires de chaque affiche qui lui est confiée. BAnQ recevra ainsi, sur une base régulière, des affiches créées au Québec pour les archiver dans une base informatique.”

The problem with this is that it focuses entirely on commercial postering while ignoring the affichage sauvage of the most important sort: the posters created by community organizations, independent musicians and other no-budget groups. Everyday, grassroots posters are found affixed illegally to lampposts, traffic control boxes and mailboxes. Often, they are works of art in and of themselves, created by talented artists like Jack Dylan and Billy Mavreas.

Unfortunately, there are few legal spaces for posters in Montreal, and those that exist are monopolized by Publicté sauvage’s commercial posters. If those are worthy enough to be collected by Quebec’s national library, what about the rest of them?