10 Bucks For The Sign
So I have this idea for a project for about 15 years but I’ve never executed on it. Instead of actually doing it, I’m going to publish it here as a piece of conceptual art.
“10 Bucks For The Sign” is an art & economics project as follows:
* If I see a hand-lettered sign held by a person who is soliciting for money in the public way, I offer them money to give the sign to me. I call these pieces “solicitation signage”.
There are a number of aspects to this project:
* Typography: I think a lot of these signs are interesting from a purely typographic point of view. Hand lettering is a dying art, and I want to document what I view to be the best of the best
* Markets: As far as I know, no one has ever systematically paid for solicitation signage. That means there is no market for them. Signs may be varyingly effective in generating revenue for the solicitor, but there is no market for the signs themselves. So from a pure University of Chicago-style perspective, I am interested in whether this affects the nature of the signs (i.e. would solicitors “compete” to create signs that are more appealing to the market to generate sales and increase revenue). Will they make the exact same sign as a replacement? Will the messaging change?
* Economics in general: As I take the sign, I am taking away their revenue-generator, their means of production. I am going to be adding a new wrinkle to it, which is that I will offer a fresh piece of cardboard and a Sharpie to the solicitors as a part of the payment. I’m looking forward to seeing how this affects things as well (uniformity of size? multiple signs for different situations?)
* Art: There’s all sorts of intersections of art that this stuff could fit into. The first thought would be folk/ outsider art, but I would say that in the vast majority (especially now, in the beginning) I wouldn’t call it that at all. In order to make folk art, one has to attempt to do so. This would be the