Existential Crisis, 99¢: Signs Of Our Times At South And Housatonic
For two decades, provocative window signs overlooking an intersection in Pittsfield have left us wondering about their origin.
At a busy intersection in Pittsfield, you can get Hard Knocks for Buy 1 Get 3 Free, Known Unknowns, 5 for a $1, and Democracy on a Fire Sale. The “market” where these sentiments are sold is located in the windows above the storefronts at South Street and West Housatonic. Since 2001, these signs have provided drivers and pedestrians brief, thought-provoking moments as they wait for the light to change. The window signs are part of an ongoing series titled “BIG SALE,” and are the creation of artists Michael McKay and Monika Pizzichemi of Empty Set Projects (their own tagline: “Art, like crime, does not pay”).
“The window signs were the first thing we did when we moved into the space,” says McKay. That was in 2001. “There’s an incredible amount of sun up there — too much at some points. We put up the posters to keep the sun out. But it was also a way to get the space noticed.”
Inspiration for the sale signs came from a book, “Boring Postcards,” a collection of the dullest postcards of Britain in the 1950s, 60s and 70s that Magnum photographer Martin Parr could find. One of the postcards depicted a grocery story with product sale signs over all its windows. This was before the advent of the heavy branding period we’re living in now, and McKay was also influenced by a magazine, AdBusters, in which people were making artwork, or playing around with ads and campaigns working against a consumerist society.
The original signs employed adjectives from actual grocery store signage: fresh, juicy, genuine. As you might expect, the signs have often reflected the politics of the time. Some of the recent messages: Fourteenth Amendment Going Fast! (this one with a rare exclamation point); Double Standard, 2 for $3, and Final Straw 89¢.
“The prices are arbitrary,” McKay says, although sometimes the price is part of the joke. He comes up with most of the concepts, bouncing ideas off Pizzichemi. He admits that after two decades, it’s becoming more of a challenge to keep up the sardonic wit, and although he’s had few complaints about the content, if he stopped entertaining the drivers who bear the long stoplight thanks to the signs, he’d probably be in trouble. They’re seriously popular.
“When I take them down, I get complaint mail,” he says.
If there’s one that really tickles your fancy (they’re all posted on the website), you can purchase it. And they do sell. There are over 300 of them now (the pile weighs a ton, he says), and go for $75 a pop. Among the best sellers: Genuine Irony. Fresh Ideas. Juicy Metaphors. Mixed Emotions. Free Lunch. Sweet Nothings “I wish I could sell the rest of my artwork like that," says McKay.
Born and raised in southeastern Massachusetts, McKay accompanied his wife back to the Berkshires, where she grew up. They moved to Canaan, New York in 1997 and recently relocated to Dalton. The couple were slightly ahead of the nascent creative economy push in Pittsfield, so when they opened up the space as a gallery with high hopes for traffic other than what was going on outside, they found it was difficult to get people to come to exhibits beyond the openings. They’ve kept up the space as their studio.
“I find inspiration in outdated, cold war era, American advertising and textbook illustration styles and the hollow fiction of the American dream that they signify,” McKay writes in his artist’s statement. While his hand-lettered typography takes us back to 50s and 60s, the signs’ messages are spot on for today, even if we don’t want them to be. Especially this one, facing South Street right now: Freedom of Choice, Sold Out.
Let’s hope not.
