Alfredo Jaar Messages to the Public: A Logo For America

In his message A Logo for America, Alfredo Jaar (b. 1956, Santiago, Chile) transforms the word/image “America” on the screen, demonstrating how language often influences the public to picture on one dimension of America: North America. Jaar is an artist living and working in the United States while his native Chile continues to be adversely affected by the actions and policies of the US government.

The broadcast begins with a map of the United States in full color. The colors fade and the map becomes a black outline with the words “This Is Not America” superimposed across its middle. The next frame shows the United States’ flag, again in full color, fading to a line drawing with the overlaid text “This Is Not America’s Flag.” The word “America” is then shown expanding for the next five frames and the letter “R” eventually transforms itself into a map of North and South America. This image rests in the middle of the lightboard and rotates. The message ends with the word “America” engulfing the screen with the letter “R” transfigured as before.

Jaar, who is from the “other” America, claims that his message, like his country, “demands the simplest kind of recognition—that of being put on the map.”

Messages to the Public formed a key part of the Public Art Fund’s long-term commitment to media-based artworks. Running from 1982 to 1990, the show featured a series of artists’ projects created specifically for the Spectacolor board at Times Square.

As Russell Miller from Ohio newspaper The Toledo Blade explained in his article on February 19, 1984, “every month, a different artist presents a 30-second animation on the Spectacolor light board—an 800-square-foot array of 8,000 red, white, blue, and green 60-watt bulbs that dominates the Times Square vista. The spot is repeated more than 50 times a day for two weeks, wedged into a 20-minute loop of computer-animated commercials.

“Jane Dickson, a painter, was working for Spectacolor, Inc. as an ad designer and computer programmer when, three and a half years ago, she first thought to use the light board to display noncommercial art.

“‘I picked that title,’ she said of Messages to the Public, ‘because I thought the propaganda potential from this project was terrific.’ The board, she noted, was regularly used for ‘commercial propaganda.’

“Dickson sought help from the Public Art Fund, an organization based here and dedicated to taking art out of the galleries and placing it in the city’s streets and parks.”

Project Director of the Public Art Fund Jessica Cusick explained, “We’re trying to do art that’s timely, has a message, is visually potent and is trying to deal with the fine line dividing fine art and commercial art.”