Roe Ethridge Presents 1-555-DIVORCE for the High Line on the Billboard Adjacent to the Park at 18th Street

Photo by Timothy Schenck (rendering)

The High Line announced the presentation of 1-555-DIVORCE by artist Roe Ethridge as a billboard, adjacent to the park at 18th Street near 10th Avenue, on view for two months. Ethridge, renowned for his ability to cannily—and often comicly—manipulate the visual tropes of American commercial culture, plays with the blunt iconography of roadside legal advertisements in 1-555-DIVORCE. Located along busy thoroughfare of 10th Avenue at the gateway to the arts district of Chelsea, Ethridge’s billboard sardonically speaks to its site at the intersection of fine art and brash commerce.

“Roe Ethridge has such a sharp eye for culture, and has such fun turning staid commercial visual language into something uncanny,” said Cecilia Alemani, the Donald R. Mullen, Jr. Director & Chief Curator of High Line Art. “The sense of humor and disruption 1-555-DIVORCE brings to the High Line and its surroundings via a canvas that was previously used for commercial purposes is particularly delightful and amusing.”

1-555-DIVORCE was originally commissioned by Double Magazine, a French fashion publication. Playing with the landscape format of the magazine, which resembles a highway billboard’s aspect ratio when opened, Ethridge deliberately mimics the bold typologies and visual lexicon associated with the ubiquitous roadside advertisements. Drawing on the imagery used in divorce lawyer ads in particular, the work features a model wearing a wig, glasses, and a cartoonishly oversized houndstooth jacket. She clutches a mug that reads “World’s Best Lawyer,” while staring down at the audience with performative gravitas, as though they sit on the opposing side of the table in a four-way meeting. The title text, “1-555-DIVORCE,” is rendered in a vibrant blue font with a drop shadow, a nod to the rudimentary design associated with these billboards. Together, these elements coalesce into a consciously “imperfect” image: a too-vibrant background, messy outlines, topped with an out-of-place synthetic Halloween wig. The scene is imbued with a sense of immediacy and humor, more akin to a captured moment from a sketch comedy than from a divorce lawyer ad. In turn, 1-555-DIVORCE offers a powerful commentary on the American landscape and its commercial signifiers. Towering over 10th Avenue today, the work also lands a subtle quip: in an increasingly troubled world where farce and reality have blurred into one, Ethridge provides a help line for those who might wish to divorce reality itself, not merely their spouse.

Ethridge is known for straddling the line between commercial advertising and fine art. His practice was borne out of revisiting outtakes from his commercial gigs—adopting and reworking the imperfect, the less technical, and the messier photographs from professional shoots to create art that resembled ads, but advertised nothing. The resulting works are slightly off-kilter, almost gestural in their physicality and spontaneity. Ethridge’s compositions often juxtapose images already in circulation with commercial shots of models and products, along with images from his own life, drawn from his personal archive. He creates disjointed and uncanny vignettes that use the same visual lexicon as advertising, disrupting how we digest the idealized scenes presented in commercial media.

1-555-DIVORCE follows works by Allison Katz, Alex Da Corte, Małgorzata Mirga-Tas, and Glenn Ligon in the ongoing series of artwork presented by the High Line at that location in Chelsea. The billboard at 18th Street, once a remnant of the neighborhood’s industrial past, is now solely dedicated to the presentation of art, and artworks change every few months. Past artists featured include John Baldessari, Faith Ringgold, and Louise Lawler, among many others.

ABOUT THE ARTIST

Roe Ethridge (b. 1969, Miami, Florida) lives and works in Far Rockaway, New York. Ethridge has presented work in solo exhibitions at institutions around the world, including Contemporary Arts Center, Cincinnati, Ohio (2016); Le Consortium, Dijon, France (2012); Museum Leuven, Leuven, Belgium (2012); Charles Riva Collection, Brussels, Belgium (2012); Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston, Massachusetts (2005); and Clough-Hanson Gallery, Rhodes College, Memphis, Tennessee (2003). Notable and recent group exhibitions include Objects of Desire. Photography and the Language of Advertising, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, California (2022); LE GRAND NUMÉRO DE CHANEL, Grand Palais Éphémère, Paris, France (2022); New Visions: The Henie Onstad Triennial for Photography and New Media, Henie Onstad Kunstsenter, Høvikodden, Norway (2020); Pictures from Another Wall: The Collection of Huit Marseille at De Pont, De Pont Museum, Tilburg, Netherlands (2020); Mad World, Marciano Art Foundation, Los Angeles, California (2018); Picture Fiction: Kenneth Josephson and Contemporary Photography, Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, Illinois (2018); Sea Sick in Paradise, Depart Foundation, Malibu, California (2017); The Poetics of Place: Contemporary Photographs from the Met Collection; Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (2016); Human Interest: Portraits From the Whitney’s Collection, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York (2016); Perfect Likeness: Photography and Composition, Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, California (2015); Teen Paranormal Romance, Atlanta Contemporary Art Center, Atlanta, Georgia (2014); Meanwhile… Suddenly and Then, 12th Biennale de Lyon, Lyon, France (2013); Real to Real: Photographs from the Traina Collection, de Young Museum, San Francisco, California (2012); CLAP., Hessel Museum of Art, Hudson, New York (2011); New Photography 2010: Roe Ethridge, Elad Lassry, Alex Prager, Amanda Ross-Ho, Museum of Modern Art, New York, New York (2010); among others. Ethridge’s work is featured in the collections of major institutions around the world, including Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois; Aspen Art Museum, Aspen, Colorado; Marieluise Hessel Collection at CCS Bard, Annandale-on-Hudson, New York; Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; International Center of Photography, New York, New York; Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston, Massachusetts; Kistefos Museum, Jevnaker, Norway; Le Consortium, Dijon, France; Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, New York; Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, Illinois; Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, California; Museum of Modern Art, New York, New York; Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, New York, S.M.A.K., Ghent, Belgium; Smith College Museum of Art, Northhampton, Massachusetts; Tate Modern, London; UK; Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, Indianapolis; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, New York.

SUPPORT

Lead support for High Line Art comes from Amanda and Don Mullen. Major support is provided by Shelley Fox Aarons and Philip E. Aarons, The Brown Foundation, Inc. of Houston, and Charina Endowment Fund.

Program support for High Line Art is provided by Molly Gochman and Joyce F. Menschel. Additional support for High Line Art is provided by Agnes Gund, Shane Akeroyd, Scott Sullivan and Anna Marrs.

High Line Art is supported, in part, with public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Kathy Hochul and the New York State Legislature, and the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the New York City Council, under the leadership of Speaker Adrienne Adams.

Major support of High Line Art digital infrastructure is provided by Bloomberg Philanthropies.

ABOUT HIGH LINE ART

Founded in 2009, High Line Art commissions and produces a wide array of artworks on the High Line, including site-specific commissions, exhibitions, performances, video programs, and a series of billboard interventions. Led by Cecilia Alemani, the Donald R. Mullen, Jr. Director & Chief Curator of High Line Art, and presented by the High Line, the art program invites artists to think of creative ways to engage with the unique architecture, history, and design of the park, and to foster a productive dialogue with the surrounding neighborhood and urban landscape.

For more information on High Line Art, please visit thehighline.org/art.

ABOUT THE HIGH LINE

The High Line is a public park on the West Side of Manhattan operated, maintained, and funded by the nonprofit conservancy Friends of the High Line. Through our work with communities on and off the High Line, Friends of the High Line is devoted to reimagining public spaces to create connected, healthy neighborhoods and cities.

Built on a historic, elevated rail line, the High Line was always intended to be more than a park. You can walk through the gardens, view art, experience a performance, enjoy food or beverage, or connect with friends and neighbors—all while enjoying a unique perspective of New York City.

Nearly 100% of our annual budget comes through donations. The High Line is owned by the City of New York, and we operate the park under a license agreement with NYC Parks.

For more information, visit thehighline.org and follow us on Facebook, X, Instagram and TikTok.

@HighLineArtNYC @roeethridge