Shane Finan
Shane is an artist, designer and writer. After graduating with a BA in Fine Art from Sligo I.T. in 2008, he has worked on
various projects in Ireland, through Europe and the US in the fields of art and design. His work was exhibited in OFFSET
2012 (Dublin), Irish Wave III (Beijing) and Painted Word (Vermont). He writes regularly for a blog, Moon Under Water
(http://moonunderwater.org), which was recently a finalist in the Best Arts / Culture Blog category at the Blog Awards
Ireland. He is currently studying for an MSc in Interactive Digital Media in Trinity College, Dublin.
various projects in Ireland, through Europe and the US in the fields of art and design. His work was exhibited in OFFSET
2012 (Dublin), Irish Wave III (Beijing) and Painted Word (Vermont). He writes regularly for a blog, Moon Under Water
(http://moonunderwater.org), which was recently a finalist in the Best Arts / Culture Blog category at the Blog Awards
Ireland. He is currently studying for an MSc in Interactive Digital Media in Trinity College, Dublin.
This Is Your God: Billboards, Public Art, and the Idea of Culture
Poster and billboard advertising has become an acute way of judging the difference between two places. In the undecorated steel and glass of airports there can be few indicators to remind a traveller who has just arrived that they have even left their original location. One of the common and decisive indicators is a change in language or tone in the advertisements that are on display.
I remember landing in London for the first time and getting the tube into the city. At the first station three escalator journeys awaited, and on the tiled wall during the slow ascent there passed identical framed advertisements spaced a little apart from one another the whole way up. This deluge of small posters is not a rare sight in the London Underground, but it seemed unusual to me initially as it did not mirror any other subway, metro or Untergrundbahn that I had previously encountered.
Although a recent phenomenon, at least in terms of quantity, posters and billboards can be a key landmark in cities and towns. Even on a more local level, the standard of graphic design in an area can create a different atmosphere or sense from the “commercial street art” of posters and billboards. In terms of larger corporate companies, the use of strong location and quirky advertising ideas that incorporate their surrounds are more key.
So what effect has the slew of public advertisements had on the role of Public Art? Originally designed to act as the cultural signifier of a specific place, Public Art has become a contentious issue for several reasons. Public artworks too often degraded to the category of eyesores, as seen in the recent backlash from the completion of Anish Kapoor’s Olympic Park sculpture in London. At times public art commissions are unambitious and lead to poor artworks lining roads or sitting in village greens. Much Street Art, in particular graffiti, is destroyed as quickly as it is created, and is bemoaned by many as being aggressive or just ugly.
It is little surprise that Public Art suffers some degree of outspoken criticism. While contemporary gallery art takes its own share of lambasting, it is still safely ensconced within the White Cube, the traditional art space where the public can choose to visit. Public Art on the other hand is displayed in the public domain, most often installed as a permanent fixture. This leaves more room for vocal criticism, and the public response to Public Art can be outspoken and fierce. In 1989 Richard Serra’s Tilted Arc was removed from its home at Federal Plaza, New York, after numerous complaints including how the work attracted graffiti, distracted workers and obstructed the public walkway.
Tilted Arc was an early work that helped spark the ongoing debate that is repeatedly brought up in Irish media today about public funding for Public Art. Much of the finger-pointing is directed toward the use of government funds to include artworks as a necessity during construction, as with the Percent for Art scheme here (similar schemes have been implemented in many countries across the world). There can certainly be something said for the unambitious quality of much of the work that is made for these schemes. It is difficult for artists to embed strong messages in artworks that are being commissioned by groups who do not want political or social agendas attached to their buildings or roads. As a result the works can be largely tame and unimaginative – “safe” art for lack of a better term.
The relationship between public art and advertising design has caused a rift in display methods of the former. The argument often levelled at public art about the amount of public funding that is spent in its creation and upkeep is not relevant in the case of privately-funded billboard or poster advertising. So it seems that often the cultural signifiers of public art may be being replaced by the cultural nuances of billboard design, but to what end?
In the US the advertisements are striking in their difference in style and tone to any in Europe. From JFK Airport onward posters and billboards were everywhere, and most pounded home messages in bold type with brash images. Times Square in New York prides itself on outdoor advertising; there they have gone so far as to make it law to have advertisements on your building. The Times Square billboards constantly push themselves to become brighter and brighter to the point of garish intensity – the newest LED screens mark themselves out clearly from the others on the square by being bright enough to bathe the street in near daylight even at night.
On buses and subways in the States the advertising follows this pattern. Bold, brash text and chunky imagery with heavily saturated colours is the order of the day, and even the tag-lines are nearly demanding. From the point of view of someone who has never dealt with this intensity of advertising on a large scale I found that these posters and billboards were nearly as illegible as those in countries where I do not speak the language.
Posters and billboards have thus had a heavy influence on late 20th and early 21st century art. Certainly the increased use of text and chic billboard-style imagery in postmodernist art reflects in some way the increase of outdoor advertising in the 20th century. In The Painted Word critic Tom Wolfe described the influence of advertising on painting as the break-down of representational art. In the early 21st century artists like Peter Fuss and Shepard Fairey have directly addressed the billboard concept, often using advertising styles to portray anti-advertising ideas. Fairey himself took influence from the John Carpenter movie They Live in his imitations of the subliminal messages that appear on billboards in the movie.
As billboard advertising is becoming increasingly transient, street art is being encouraged more as a popular decorative alternative. This again is something which can become an informative guide to help a traveller place themselves in the world. Although street artists move regularly, much graffiti (particularly by more amateur or outsider artists) is still written in languages and styles native to the place that it is located. The site-specific street art of Tsang Tsou Choi is a good example of this.
This is important when observed within the pattern is emerging in European billboards and posters that has seen English becoming the primary advertising language whether or not the country is English speaking or the area is tourist-heavy. English has become such a go-to language in Europe as it is more likely that natives and travellers to the country will speak the permeating language than any other. This is gently killing off billboards as signifiers of place, as the use of English also means foreign design styles are incorporated, moving toward a globalised system of advertising signage, at least in the European continent.
To add to this, the printed format may be slowing production. Certainly the print industry is losing steam to the new technologies that are making the medium less relevant than it has been in the past. Looking at the near-invasive intensity of Times Square, a Blade Runner-esque flashing video advertisement future is very possibly on the cards. It is not uncommon now to see flat-screen advertisements in small shops and cafes. This conversion may usher a new age of flat advertising that escapes the idea of printed form, and it will be interesting to see whether any of the cultural signifiers will continue, or even strengthen, with more use of video or interactive media.
In the late 90s, Banksy and company became the forerunners of a new movement that began to push social messages and ideas, using the urban sphere as a forum. Richard Serra‘s tactful response to the public outcry over the aforementioned Tilted Arc sculpture was to declare that “art is not democratic” and that the public should not be involved. It is interesting to see the dichotomy between Serra’s statement about the public role in the creation of art and the boisterous public response to Jacek Tylicki, Sheppard Fairey and others who use the urban landscape as a space to create public discourse.
Due to the fact that most street art is not welcomed in its setting, there is also a difference in terms of time between the Public Art of the “high art” variety and the Street Art alternative. Street art is made to be transient, and even powerful and appreciative works like those of Irish artist Conor Harrington are more often than not destroyed soon after they are made. With public art longevity is included in the design features of the works – most are made from robust materials and built to stand the test of time.
Whether the transient street art is a reflection of the more transient nature of life today or simply a more permanent stage that is under construction remains to be seen. There is certainly a relationship between the cultural significance of transient street art and that of transient billboard advertisements. There are also times when this relationship is turned on its head, and the seemingly value-less transient art becomes the commodity, assisted or accompanied by the billboards and posters. As shown in the recent documentary Exit Through The Gift Shop, street art has gained a value in high art society too. It still seems regressively ironic to see chunks of broken-off wall with Banksy images spray-painted on them on display in commercial art galleries.
So there emerges a possible trend.
The use of public space for advertising or for art will remain for the foreseeable. Whether we will still be able to recognise where we are in the world by looking at them is another question.
Public Art is not for the public. Billboards create culture. And Street Art is leaving the streets. Is it about time that we saw gallery art in supermarkets?