CRISES

The Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles (MOCA) commissioned the advertisement company TBWA/Chiat/Day to design a series of art labels on billboards. These existing billboards were located throughout Los Angeles. The art represented at each of those locations was merely street life; commercial and civic structures; and people who occupied or were passing through those spaces.

The premise behind the billboards campaign functioning as labels for works of art was to increase visitation to MOCA. The billboards immediately received negative feedback from artists and art critics living in Los Angeles. Los Angeles Times critic, Christopher Knight, wrote: “The museum, with its conceptual commercials, appears to be usurping the role of the artist, and bad artist at that.”

CRISES became a performance project in response to the MOCA billboard advertisement campaign. The word CRISES along with a critical comment was printed on 8.5” x 11” card stock paper. CRISES was then mailed to then MOCA Director, Jeremy Strick. CRISES was a direct comment to the conventions of power within art institutions, those who weld such power, as well as who and what deems a work of art versus an advertisement.