Recently I submitted the above mock-up for a pair of art billboards. It may not come as a surprise to some that they were not selected for inclusion. And as much as I would have preferred that they were included, up front, I realized it was a long shot that they might not be seen in a favorable light by a review committee composed, in part, of business interests. Regardless, I felt it was important in a program about art, more specifically one using billboards as an art framing device, that the proposed work should do just that: acknowledge that the medium is a billboard and given that, how can proposed work be framed within the history of outdoor advertising and how can I, as an artist, respond to such constraints in a meaningful way.
Those interested in learning more about the history of outdoor advertising can consult this industry view which contains a
keynote speech by the current director, Nancy Hartman, at the Duke Harman Center.
Duke also maintains a large library of digital images that are worth a view.
