![\"\"](\"https:\/\/develop-scenic-america.pantheonsite.io\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/billboardartLA-1024x768.jpg\")
<\/figure><\/div>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nThe artist does not work with complete freedom<\/strong>. Most programs of this kind require the sign company that owns the board and the sponsoring organization to approve the design. A lot of the best art is challenging or controversial, and thus unsuitable for a billboard. You will never see such work in public, and artists who place their work on a billboard are consenting to some degree of self-censorship.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n The sign companies are engaging in artwashing<\/strong>. Putting \u201cart\u201d on a billboard is not art patronage by sign companies; it\u2019s public relations work. I know this from years of experience as an activist: At every public hearing on any aspect of billboard regulation, the sign companies tout their \u201ccharitable contributions\u201d and\/or \u201csupport for culture.\u201d This is part of their ongoing effort to groom their public image and secure the best treatment from legislative bodies that regulate businesses. In reality, such \u201cpatronage\u201d amounts to a tiny fraction of the acres of billboard space that they command. The most recent LA exhibition took over 30 billboards for one month, out of a total of 8,000 billboards in Los Angeles.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n Following the money is a discouraging trail<\/strong>. Artists get low or no compensation for use of their work, and they often pay entry fees (Billboard Creative charges $28). Moreover, if the sign company donates billboard space or sells it for a reduced fee, the sign company gets a tax deduction, money that must be replenished somehow. In the words of artist and activist Hans Haacke, \u201cIt is, in fact, the taxpayers who cover what corporations save through their \u2018generous contributions.\u2019 In the end, we are the ones who wind up subsidizing the corporate propaganda.\u201d (Free Exchange<\/em>, 1995, Polity Press, p. 18)<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n In short: If we value our visual environment, if we would like to see fewer billboards and less advertising clutter in our lives, the best course is to resist having temporary renditions of art on billboards. The redirection of a few billboards for one month makes the task of reducing visual blight all year long much harder.<\/p>\r\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" From Scenic Los Angeles President Patrick Frank Periodically we see something resembling art on billboards, when an arts organization takes over a set of billboards and replaces the usual ads with mock-ups of work by actual artists. Here in Los Angeles, for example, the local non-profit The Billboard Creative runs an annual month-long group exhibition […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":9536,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9325","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-los-angeles"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n