How Many Billboards?

In the months of February and March this year the boulevard drivers of Los Angeles might notice something a bit peculiar during their daily commute.
Various billboards around Los Angeles are now displaying artwork by different contemporary graphic artists rather than the advertisements which they are use to showing off.

MAK Center for Art and Architecture at the Schindler House is bringing art to a billboard near you with their exhibition How Many Billboards? Art in Stead. This exhibition commissions works from 21 leading contemporary artists and is presenting them on billboards in the pocket created by the 405, 10, and 101.

Director Kimberli Meyer believes that art should be brought to one of the most dominant features in the landscape of Los Angeles, billboards. Instead of urging people to consume, Meyer is encouraging Angelinos to look and think. The only flaw in this exhibition lies in the fact that the billboards are located in areas of the city where the demographic has already been formally educated to look and think about art.

18 of these billboards sit on major boulevards north of the 10 and west of the 110 known as the affluent section of town. The outlying other three are located in Culver City, just touching the south side of the 10.

If this organization wanted to urge Los Angeles as a whole to interact with these pieces why didn’t they spread their exhibition to all sides of the city, rich and poor? Professional art located in struggling areas such as South Central and East LA would be just as if not more beneficial to the people who don’t go to the museum on a regular basis. So, why restrict?

To read more about this exhibition and to see a map of the billboards please visit: http://howmanybillboards.org/