Billboards aim to spark conversation

Craig McDonald, Reporter

NEWARK -- The image on the billboard at the corner of Fourth and Church streets in Newark is a stark one: an unmade, rumpled bed and two dented-in pillows.

The billboard is a result of the efforts of Denison University Assistant Professor Sheilah Wilson and DU students, a project funded by the Licking County Foundation and the Ohio Arts Council.

The image is the work of late-Cuban artist Felix Gonzalez-Torres and is called “Untitled.” It originally appeared on billboards in New York City.

Wilson said the work was informed by the death of the artist’s partner, Ross Laycock, as a result of AIDS.

“The work was revolutionary in talking about loss, love and intimacy” in an oblique way, and in having to “confront it” in a public space, Wilson said. “We’re offering the art, then these layers of response to it.”

The image also adorns five more identical billboards that have gone up at various Licking County locations, also intended to spark thought and conversation.

Last year, Wilson noted, billboards went up at 11th Street in Newark and above the Apple Tree Auction Center with the words “Imagine Peace” on a white background and designed by Yoko Ono. In smaller letters, those billboards said, “love, yoko”.

Wilson said, “The original idea was to explore, how can contemporary art interact with other environments?”

The other goal, according to Wilson, is to engage students at the YES Club in Newark and local schools through workshops conducted by Denison students as a project-based learning exercise.

The goal during those workshops, Wilson said, is explore the themes and ideas that the billboard articulates, and to get students thinking about what sorts of images they would place on billboards to make a statement.

“They will work on their own designs in reaction to what the billboard says,” she explained. “We will give them disposable cameras, and ask, ‘What do you love’? We’ll then ask students, ‘How can you represent that with an image?’”

Last year, the resulting student creations by McGuffey Elementary fifth-graders were published in a keepsake newspaper.

The objective this year, Wilson said, is to have a special exhibition in the new Denison Art Space in Newark, at 23 W. Church St.

Five Denison students will lead this year’s workshops; they were scheduled to kick off on Feb. 22 at the YES Club. She said of the DU students, “They come from a variety of focuses: studio art, education and theatre.”

Locations of the billboards include spots on National Drive, at Fourth Street and Walnut, at Fourth Street and Church, and Church and 11th streets, as well as on the Ohio 79 by-pass.

A billboard installed as part of a project by Denison University can be seen at the corner of Church and 4th streets in Newark. The billboard is meant to educate and spur conversation.