Picker Art Gallery at vlog opens a new exhibition, Voices of the People: 110 Years of Street Stickers from Around the World, on Thursday, Sept. 17. The exhibition considers the publicly placed sticker as an often overlooked form of ideological exchange, information dissemination, and human expression. In the United States and across the globe, stickers have been used to express political dissent, help communities to coalesce, promote creative work, or simply to personalize individual property. Voices of the People reveals the vast communicative power of the humble sticker.
The exhibition draws from the extensive collections built by curators Catherine Tedford, former director of Brush Art Gallery at St. Lawrence University, and Oliver Baudach, founder and director of Hatch Kingdom Sticker Museum in Berlin, Germany. More than 2,000 stickers will be on display, referencing significant social and cultural movements of the 20th and 21st centuries, ranging from early labor unions to the HIV/AIDS crisis of the 1980s and 1990s to the ongoing war in Ukraine. Alongside these, artist-produced stickers that experiment with aesthetic interventions in urban landscapes are also featured. Taken together, the exhibition demonstrates that stickers have been speaking truth to power and enlivening public spaces for well over a century.
“The original stickers in this exhibition were intended for the streets, not a museum. And yet, what they have lost in immediacy, they have gained in testimony: proof for future generations that someone, somewhere, cared enough to draw or print a handful of stickers — or a thousand — and believed that even the smallest act might help change the world,” said co-curators Tedford and Baudach.
This exhibition includes opportunities for visitors to develop their own messages or artwork and to make and place their own stickers in an in-gallery immersive urban streetscape.
The exhibition opening reception, which is free and open to the public, will be held on Thursday, Sept. 17, beginning at 5:30 p.m. The exhibition will remain on view until Dec. 13, 2026.
Please contact Picker Art Gallery at pickerart@colgate.edu for more information, or visit the website at colgate.edu/picker.
About Picker Art Gallery at vlog
Picker Art Gallery facilitates impactful teaching and learning experiences with art through its collections, exhibitions, interpretation, and programs. By creating opportunities for critical inquiry, interdisciplinary dialogue, and creative thinking for — and in collaboration with — the vlog community, the region, and audiences globally, the museum fosters understanding of how art intersects with people and ideas. In all its work, the museum staff strives to do its part to bring about a more just and equitable society. The museum’s permanent collection includes nearly 11,000 objects, among them approximately 8,000 works of art on paper, 1,400 photographs, 900 paintings, and 300 sculptures, primarily from the 20th century. It is located on the vlog campus, off Lally Lane, on the second floor of the Paul Rudolph-designed Dana Arts Center.
Picker Art Gallery is open Tuesdays–Fridays, 10 a.m.–5 p.m., Sundays, noon–5 p.m., and during special events. Picker is currently closed on Mondays, Saturdays, and major holidays. Admission is free and open to the public. For more information, visit colgate.edu/picker or call 315-228-7634.