At first glance, this sculpture appears to be the silhouetted framework of an actual billboard. In fact, the piece is flat. Cut from a perspectival drawing and built like a theatrical stage set, it creates a disorienting illusion that flattens out as one passes by. While fairly large, the piece is nonetheless a subtle addition to the industrialist-mansion-turned-art-center; it nags at the peripheral vision of the passerby, who tries to remember if it had been there previously, who may see it simply as a naked billboard, and not as a residual industrial object descended atop a formal 17th-Century Carolean-inspired building. A companion piece invites viewers to take a souvenir postcard of a blank billboard, both inviting them to dream into its empty advertising space and memorializing their visit to the exterior site, turning a peripheral, non-event into one to remember.
materials: baltic birch plywood cut with cnc router / size: 12x14 feet / technical assistance: Norman Beck / installed: Pittsburgh Center for the Arts, permanent commission