"Second Saturday at Eco-LA" "Takes It All Off...For ART". Huge Billboard Art Piece to be Unveiled With Dramatic Street Curtain Drop
The Eco-LogicalART Gallery "Takes It All Off... For ART" with "Second Saturday at Eco-LA". The huge new artwork, painted on recycled billboard vinyl, and displayed on a billboard over the gallery, will be unveiled with dramatic 7pm curtain drop. The piece will be seen 35,000 times daily, over 1 million times by the end of the month.
Los Angeles, CA (PRWEB) May 30, 2009 -- Peter Schulberg, of the Eco-LogicalART Gallery (www.eco-la.org) is pleased to announce that "Second Saturday at Eco-LA" will be premiere June 13, 2009. The free public event features a dramatic 7PM curtain drop to reveal a stunning 14 foot by 48 foot art piece painted on a recycled billboard and installed on a billboard directly over the Eco-LA Gallery. The evening also includes a gallery show of 30 smaller works painted on recycled vinyl, live billboard art painting, eco-art, recycled element accessories for sale in the Eco-LA "Recovery Room", green demos, music, and more. The opening is from 6-10pm-- Curtain drop at 7pm. Show run June 13-July 8th.
Sponsored in part by the Vinyl Institute, the launch of the recurring curtain drop Second Saturday events kick off a 7-month exhibition of art painted on recycled billboards. In the fall of 2009 nonprofit Eco-LA plans to expand to other billboard art displays across Los Angeles. Once "exhibit" in the first hour more every-day Angelinos will experience the public "drive-by" art than attend all of L.A.'s major museums in a month.
The idea to create canvases from landfill destined PVC vinyl came to Eco-LA founder Schulberg from out of the blue--literally. Looking back he calls it "divinyl intervention. "I heard this thump and thought somebody had just fallen off the roof". A few moments later he was on the sidewalk staring at a bundle of vinyl thrown down from the billboard over his gallery. He inquired as to what happens with it and learned that tons of billboard advertising is tossed into landfills monthly.
Schulberg (a painter and recovered-element functional artist) felt the waste begged for a green solution. He began experimenting with paint on it, created a way to stretch the vinyl, then placed notices on LA art newsgroups offering free canvases and exposure on the exterior of his gallery. With web word out Schulberg waited--but not for long. "I was asking artists to work for free, on a weird new material to be exhibited on the exterior on my gallery--hostage to heat, wind, rain, and a kid with a paintball gun." But the artists, some who sell for thousands of dollars, came and keep coming.
Schulberg admires them for putting their "art" on their sleeves. He also liked the idea of turning the vinyl and who-you-know gallery world literally "inside-out". Ironically, the quirky "drive-by" outside art exhibit has come full circle to produce real sales. Since 2005, $45,000 of art painted on recycled vinyl art has been sold by Eco-LA. Schulberg adds: "As an eco-bonus, more than 30,000 sq ft and several tons of pvc vinyl has been diverted from local landfills."
Though heartened by the gallery shows-- as befits billboards, Schulberg had his sights set higher. That vision was realized in 2007 when he partnered with display heavyweights Van Wagner and CBS Outdoor for the donation of time on actual billboards. Five works painted on recycled billboards went up across LA for "Off The Wall 3" (Earth Day '07). "ReVisions" (10 billboards) followed in '08. Schulberg then hit the road for "ReVisions/SF" (Earth Day '08). The exhibit included the donation of 20 Clear Channel bus shelters for "Gimme Shelter Art! The youth eco-art project featured original art on recycled vinyl--each seen over 400,000 times each.
To date the billboard art works have been seen over 40 million times. But for Schulberg the astounding numbers also come full circle-- to individuals underserved or intimidated by conventional museums. "Besides all of us in our cars, it's a kid on a bike, mother pushing a laundry cart, a truck driver, senior looking out of a bus window-- spontaneously they're catching sight of some pretty cool imagery, and seeing art in a new way".
The display companies have made that possible. Of them Schulberg admits: "Yes, they're in the business of selling advertising, but my experience is they get it-- that sometimes it's about giving a bit of imagery back to the community." Having worked with Van Wagner, CBS and Clear Channel, the donation of advertising display time now tops $400,000. The public art project also offers a new billboard paradigm; using what they do best-- the eye-popping numbers, but selling nothing more than the hope and vision of up and coming artists.
Getting response from the works-- small and large keeps Schulberg going. With hundreds of ads getting "killed" daily, he's working to get the material into public schools, to providing mural walls to inner city kids, and to thinking beyond the LA, Bay Area-- and even the California skyline. "I'm looking for a Target or Wal-Mart to sponsor a BIG year long road trip. Thirty new billboard art pieces displayed state by state, month by month, marching right across the country-- how good would that be?"
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