TV blurs line between ads and art

Rich Kushel sits in a dimly lit film studio, studying the video flickering on a screen above him. It's still early in his creative process, and the images he's watching are part of his "animatic," an animated rough draft of a commercial he's developing.

In an earlier time, Mr. Kushel, with his background in fine arts, might have been a painter or a sculptor. Instead, he hones his craft for companies like The Olive Garden.

And in fact, while Kushel toyed with painting, he says advertising was always his dream. "I just loved to watch TV," he says.

He and thousands of other creative artists are choosing to bring their skills to the pale blue of an electronic screen rather than the white of a canvas - and in the process, they are blurring the lines between advertising and art.

Part of it is that commercialism is no longer considered slightly distasteful. And then there are agencies' large creative budgets, fueled by dotcoms that are willing to pay millions of dollars for 30 seconds of on-the-edge wit. And then there's the growing sophistication of the medium: Instead of a catchy jingle or fading sports hero, today's commercials employ the technical expertise of a big-budget Hollywood film.

Indeed, the styles and techniques of advertising are becoming virtually indistinguishable from the visual arts.

In fact, one commercial made Time Magazine's Top 10 TV Moments for 1999: Monster.com's ironic "When I grow up" spots. When ads are seen as art in their own right - rather than filler or a reason to dive for the mute button - something in the culture has changed.

"Our era has made the distinction completely muddled," says Matthew Felling, media director for the Center for Media and Public Affairs in Washington. "What delineates art from advertising once Mona Lisa is caught holding a soda?"

With commercial television such a ubiquitous medium, some commentators say it was inevitable that the visual arts began to merge with commerce. And some see plenty of precedent in companies paying for "art."

"Let's face it, someone paid Mozart, commissioned him to write most of his music," says John Phelan, creative director of Cornerstone, a Baltimore-based agency. "The idea of commissioning is old; and it is, in a sense, commercial art."

Instead of the Medicis, advertisers argue, today's patrons are multimillionaire dotcoms.

But other experts find that argument a tad simplistic. "You could say that Michelangelo is just painting billboards for Jesus," says Kathi Georges, a playwright who teaches graphic design at The Art Institute International in San Francisco. But "there's a sense in my mind that he was not doing it as advertising, but was feeling the actual emotions of the human being."

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