Advertising Isn't Art, But This Is

Of all the pieces on display in Ohio Edit’s exhibition of art by ad-agency creatives, John Hegarty’s photos are perhaps the most inscrutable, at least to American eyes. The Bartle Bogle Hegarty co-founder’s “Misdirected Reverence” series features three photographs of an office building, a ladder and a seemingly lifeless body of a bewigged judge. “It’s very British,” Frank Snider, partner at the New York edit house, says simply.

Among the other artists in the show are Neil Powell, president of Powell in New York, whose cartoonish, playful paintings are inspired by people from his past; Dan Rollman, copywriter at Goodby, Silverstein & Partners in San Francisco, who displays white T-shirts customized with a permanent marker; and Adam Whitaker, creative director at Duffy/Fallon in London, who flew in for the opening last Thursday night to show his subdued photos of children and houses.