Billboards are an integral part of the 20th Century landscape, disseminating
visual information to a mobile population. These gigantic hand-painted
and printed panels obscure both natural beauty and urban blight with their
oversized portrayals.
Far from being a contemporary phenomenon, billboards are an outgrowth
of hundreds of years of commercial and fine art poster tradition.
Public communi- cation has fulfilled a human need since the Stone Age and
billposting is a practice common to most cultures. The billboard
merely takes this practice to its extreme in both size and technical execution.
In spite of their commercial intentions, billboards can be many things;
humorous, political, artistic, and even socially relevant. However,
with their ability to both reflect and influence trends in art and culture,
billboards can also be viewed as pictures in an outdoor drive-thru gallery,
offering an uncurated mirror image of society.
This exhibition consists of three groups of photographs:
1. Black and white historical photographs depicting the early stages
of outdoor advertising.
2. Color photographs surveying some of the most outstanding examples
of billboard art from the 1950's (known in the billboard trade as
"The Golden Age of Paint") to present times.
3. A series of color photographs by Robert Landau, co-author
of the book Billboard Art, displaying Landau's unique perspective
of billboards and their relationship to the modern landscape.
Although to some, billboards may immediately conjure up the notion
of visual pollution, Landau points out that billposting is, and has been
for centuries, a form of communication common to all cultures, and that
billboards are an outgrowth of the poster tradition. It is their
belief that when cleverly conceived and designed, and properly placed and
maintained, billboards can present an artistic experience to a mobile population,
operating almost as an outdoor gallery. Finally, billboards can be
seen as a mirror of our culture, reflecting trends in fashion, design,
politics, morality, art, technology and the values of society.
Artist's Statement
The contemporary urban landscape is often an experience in sensory
overload. We are bombarded with a hodge-podge of sights and sounds
that compete for our attention. In order to safely move through this
environment, whether by car or on foot, we learn to filter out most of
the confusion and focus on a narrow path. In so doing, we stop seeing
much of what is going on around us.
As a photographer of the urban landscape, my goal is to see and perhaps
make some sense of the confusion by carefully focusing in on particular
subjects, in this case billboards and their relationship to surrounding
environments. My approach is part anthropological and part poetic.
I aim to make pictures that are both social documents and personal reflections.
In so doing I hope to create a visual language that speaks of the nature
of our culture.
Robert Landau
