Sao Paulo is not a beautiful city by any means, but the law has been around for long enough that these remnants are very far in between.

Good to know. I haven't been back to Sao Paulo since 2004, so wasn't sure how widespread the remnants are.

The article and photos are from 2011....

Would be cool if these spaces (or some of them) were given to local artists to use.

Today they actually are, São Paulo is famous for it's street art. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/30/world/americas/brazil-sao...

There’s way more ugly graffiti scribbles than street art there, sadly.

That's basically what happened, just google São Paulo street art.

There is certainly a beauty in those remnants being left behind.

Yes, the place would look objectively tidier without them. But, given the context of what they used to be, I would enjoy the daily reminder that there used to be ads and now they're gone

It was for a brief period that the photographer (who happens to be a friend of the family) recorded. I find those photos brilliant in recording non-subjects - they are photos of something that is no longer there.

As the city adapted to the new rules, the frames were torn down, you could see the architecture behind them (sometimes veritable architectural treasures worth of preservation), and murals covered lots of the empty space in monumental art installations. Where the space is empty, you sometimes see art (and political protests) being projected on the walls.