THE SKY IS THE LIMIT
When the phrases: Lost Our Lease, Last Chance and Now Open were written by a skywriting plane over New York City in 2011, these everyday advertising messages took on new meaning. As Beck’s performative artwork unfolded, groups of people looked up to spell out the words, just as they had done in Virginia Woolf's Mrs. Dalloway when another skywriting spectacle brought people together to find meaning in the urban landscape. In the context of an economic recession, the Occupy Wall Street movement, and even the 10th anniversary of 9/11, the messages struck some viewers as ominous and others as hopeful. Her work asked viewers to consider this language when recontextualized in a new space.
Two years earlier, Beck hired a skywriter to write Space Available, Everything Must Go and All Sales Final. She also took out ad space in the local free City Paper. Taken from advertising and put back in the sky, albeit without any product to sell, the empty language took on new meaning and became floating poetry.
