SIGNS

Signs is the first public exhibition of selections from an ongoing series which the artist has been developing for over ten years. The images focus on the ever-present, yet often ignored, commercial fashion display throughout the city of New York.
Despite their imposing size, billboard advertisements are so abundant in modern cities that they go almost unnoticed. In his photographs, Fileti treats billboards as independent objects rather than vehicles of commerce, forcing the viewer to look at something ordinary from a new perspective. By separating advertisements from their intended purpose and framing them with select elements, Fileti moves these ubiquitous components of the urban landscape into the forefront, forcing the acknowledgment of objects that are readily filtered into the shifting visual background of the city and disregarded. By isolating these images from our habitual relationship with them, Fileti reframes the familiar, creating an unexpected interaction with something commonplace.