For her 2005 collaboration with Creative Time, American artist Christine Hill compiled captivating facts and figures about Times Square advertising into a thought provoking and resourceful artwork. A Consumer’s Guide to Times Square Advertising was a small paper wheel, which rotated to reveal details about Times Square advertisers’ budgets, locations, visibility, and actual size of ads.

The wheel was designed in the vein of 1950s consumer guidebooks, fusing an aesthetic echo of the American dream and 1950s American corporate optimism. Hill’s work responded to the growing symbolic force of brands and trademarks, as well as the reality that, with each passing day, increasing amounts of public space are sold off to the highest bidder. This domain, formally rejected by many artists, is now embedded in the dialogue of public art due to its ubiquitous presence in everyday life.

Photograph by Sarah Shatz

Christine Hill

A Consumer’s Guide to Times Square Advertising

Manhattan

2005