Q&A with Joe Marianek and Anne Thompson on the Believer Logger



THE INTERSTATE JUST LOOKS LIKE SUBJECT MATTER NOW

 

Like the motels and fast-food joints along America’s interstate system, billboards are a ubiquitous roadside feature, a revealing (if archaic) format that refuses to disappear in a digital age. In Missouri, where there is a billboard surplus, these low-budget advertisements can seem like a back-and-forth shouting match in the culture wars, with their commentaries on sex, gambling, firearms, unions, and religion.

The “I-70 Sign Show” is a yearlong event launched in April that engages the Missouri landscape by exhibiting art on an interstate billboard near Columbia, halfway between St. Louis and Kansas City. Six artists are on the main board for two months; then their work rotates to an available board elsewhere on the interstate for another two months, a different location each time. I talked with “Sign Show” organizer Anne Thompson, an artist and writer living in Columbia, about her curatorial agenda.

—Joe Marianek 

Read the Q&A on the Believer Logger
Copyright © 2017 — I-70 Sign Show
All artist images, copyright © the respective artists

social 043 twitter   social 046 facebook   social 078 instagram