How one conceptual artist brought intrigue–and chuckles–to one Los Angeles  neighborhood.

Love this. Kudos to the city of West Hollywood.

Next time you’re trolling for a parking space near Santa Monica Boulevard, pay extra attention to the street signs. Scattered among the hundreds of “normal” signs—in standard colors and sizes with same “city authorized” font—you’ll discover a few that could make you slam on the brakes.

Look closer—you think you know what they say—but your brain probably can’t make sense of the text.

That’s because Los Angeles conceptual artist Rebecca Lowry is messing with your head.  As part of an exhibition from Gallery 825 and L.A. Arts provigil Month, Lowry has replaced the signs’ parking regulations with classic Japanese Haiku poetry, translated into three languages: English, Spanish, and Russian—representing the diverse population of the city.

At the bottom of each sign, in small print, passersby can read the names of each original author.  The response is probably more than Lowry, a lecturer at the School of Architecture at USC, could have hoped for. WEHO city hall says it’s taken calls from residents reporting the fraudulent signs and placing blame on the “authors,” most of whom have been dead for more than four hundred years.

Now that’s art.

See story on KABC-TV News: http://abclocal.go.com/kabc/story?section=news/local/los_angeles&id=7247751