How Many Billboards?

Are billboards art? Many would heartily disagree. But the Los-Angeles-based MAK Center for Art and Architecture at the Schindler House is presenting a unique exhibit that might offer alternative visions.
How Many Billboards? Art In Stead uses Los Angeles streets as a gallery to explore how the medium impacts its surroundings. The large-scale urban exhibit features 21 specially commissioned works by contemporary artists that appear, simultaneously, on billboards throughout Los Angeles through March. The artists, who include Michael Asher, Daniel Joseph Martinez, Renee Green, Kori Newkirk, Allen Ruppersberg, James Welling and Yvonne Rainer, were asked to create works that “respond to the medium of the billboard and interprets its role in the urban landscape.”
The exhibit was organized by the MAK Center Director Kimberli Meyer with co-curators Lisa Henry, Dr. Nizan Shaked and Dr. Gloria Sutton, and public art consultant Sara Daleiden.
Meyer said, “The premise of the project is that art should have a significant place in the cacophony of mediated images in the city. It shouldn’t add to the existing visual noise, but rather display advertising that’s already present.”
Concerning the conflicts over billboard, videoscreens and supergraphics, Meyers said there’s no legal distinction between artwork and an advertising message if it’s on a publicly visible wall in the city. Because of this, she said, outdoor murals have been unintentionally banned. “The fact that the law is unable to distinguish between imagery generated as advertisement for commercial reasons, and imagery generated by a community for artistic reasons, seems incredible and counterintuitive. This is the context in which How Many Billboards? will be shown, and the exhibition will serve to highlight aspects of the debates around public visual space.”
To complement the exhibition, a panel comprising outdoor-media professionals and legal experts, will examine the city’s recent debate concerning LED billboards and illegal signage and free-speech rights as they relate to images on the streets. Co-presented by the MAK (which is connected to the MAK in Vienna, Austria), the Library Foundation of Los Angeles and California Lawyers for the Arts, the panel discussion is slated for Wednesday, March 24 at 7 p.m. at the Mark Taper Auditorium. For other related events, including bus tours, go to www.homanybillboards.org or follow on Twitter   (www.twitter.com/MAKBillboard).