Michael Asher, "Think Small", part of "How Many Billboards? Art in Stead", Los Angeles

"Think Small"

Michael Asher, originally at Sunset Boulevard east of Micheltorena street, Los Angeles, February-March 2010. Part of "How Many Billboards? Art in Stead" temporary project organized by the MAK Center for Art and Architecture. The billboard was defaced and re-posted in another location.

"in the case of How Many Billboards?, the site of exhibition is advertising space. Asher's piece is a reproduction of a 1959 print advertisement designed by Doyle, Dane, and Bernbach for the marketing of Volkswagen in the United States. "Think small" was the tagline in the ad and it became the concept of the campaign....Asher's choice of ads reflects several ideas. Firstly, the revisited ad can be read as a challenge to the excesses of consumer capitalism....Secondly, its reinstallation prompts a comparison of art and advertisement, and suggests the influence of one upon the other....Thirdly, the subject of the ad is a Volkswagen, which originated from Nazi Germany as a "people's car" serving the dark ambitions of Adolf Hitler." - text from a longer description by Kimberli Meyer, http://www.howmanybillboards.org/, accessed 03/2010.

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