Advertise Nothing

The government funds an art piece that comments on advertising.

A provocative new sculpture has opened at the U.S.-Canada border crossing near Vancouver, BC. It’s a billboard advertising...well, nothing.

Lead Pencil Studio's Daniel Mihalyo sheds light on the concept:

Borrowing the effectiveness of billboards to redirect attention away from the landscape... this permanently open aperture between nations works to frame nothing more than a clear view of the changing atmospheric conditions beyond.

How the installation came about: Lead Pencil Studio was shortlisted for a project to design public art at a new northern-border control station through the GSA's Design Excellence program.

Well, we think it is awesome, and we're elated that the government's supporting Lead Pencil Studio. Headed by Mihalyo and Annie Han, they've built a career on blurring the divide between architecture and art; questioning the idea of consumer culture has been a recurring theme. They've produced a raft of evocative installations: outdoor scaffolding in the middle of the Oregon grasslands, full-scale shops (without any merch) in an old shop, and so on. Think of them as a sort of Christo in the age of Christine O'Donnell.

[Images by Ian Gill courtesy of Lead Pencil Studio]


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If a psychologist was to psychoanalysis my desk I think it would a better analysis of me than anything else. I love my desk! It is me!