Artist Statement:

Why is it ok to take down someone else’s work (/advertisement) and put my work up instead:

The message of this work is not “buy! buy! buy!” it is “look, enjoy, think, like, don’t like, form an opinion.” It engages viewers in a dialogue which advertisements do not. Each piece of art put in a public space, in place of an ad, is an opportunity for viewers to reconnect with the space they inhabit.
I didn’t sign this work:

If this poster were an advertisement for me-as an artist-it would be just as problematic as a conventional, legally paid for ad. Jordan Seiler uses this quote from Lewis Hyde’s The Gift to describe his work: “unlike economic exchange, a gift has no expectation of return.” As a gift to the city, I have no expectation that this work will garner recognition or accolades. It was a very small way to change a very large cityscape. It was perhaps a utopian gesture which has the potential to lead to more concretely efficacious ones.
Just getting my feet wet:

As I prepared for my project (reading about street art, about Jordan Seiler’s work, about resident/public-space interaction) the holes in it became quite clear to me. I’m not sure such an obviously political work is the best use of reappropriated ad space; it’s a case of the message is the medium; I think just putting a piece of art in a space conventionally used for advertisements is enough of a message itself. Or perhaps I just needed to put my work in a more specific location—-out side the TimeWarner center or maybe even very close to a news stand. My lack of experience entering the instillation limited me in some ways in these options.