Last night, I attended the brilliant Off The Wall 3 art opening. Since 2004, founder Peter Schulberg has been turning used billboard vinyl into stretched “canvases” for artists to use. To date, he has diverted 2 tons and over 15,000 square feet of PCV vinyl from the waste stream. This year, he mounted an exciting new component, a drive-by companion art show. Full-scale original paintings on actual billboards will be up for public viewing throughout Los Angeles for the next month. On a single day 250,000 people will view these works. By comparison, the Getty attracts 4000 visitors daily.
Two of the most talked about pieces (of course) featured dogs; Dawn Von Flue’s evocative “The Tower”
and LeeAnn Goya’s “Chillin’” (at least I think this is a dog.) 4.26.07 (Update from the artist: she’s not sure what this creature is either. She tells people it’s more of an energy, but she didn’t seem to mind me referring to it as a dog. Its name is Poquitos.)
Both capture essential parts of L.A. life in completely different terms. Actually, the whole show reflected this dynamic and made it an exciting experience.
Schulberg has plans (with the help of the billboard companies CBS Outdoor and Van Wagner) to display recycled art year round across the city. He’s also working on an eco-logical art and green vendor event and organizing weekend “eco-inventor” workshops for kids. You can help him continue his non-profit creative contribution to a greener planet by sending him emails of enthusiasm or (for any deep-pocketed corporate-types) sponsoring the display of an original billboard.
Also, I must congratulate my friends graffiti artist Kyle Thomas, who had two super-cool pieces in the show and was interviewed for a documentary about the Eco-logicalArt Gallery, and James Panozzo (who told me and I told Kyle about the show in the first place) whose Lawrence Asher Gallery had an wonderful show of large scale abstract works by Philippa Blair and Steve Hampton last night. Turn out was great at both spots — hope you guys made some sales.
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