Personally, while I find it garish and cheap, I'd call it pop art. Poorly executed pop art, but art nonetheless. And yes, anything can become art, especially with the help of those 1000 critics.
BTW, way back in design school, at Thanksgiving, the local professional design society held a contest for us students. We were to design the "essense of a turkey". I built a brick wall, about 3' x 3'. I then cut out a silouette of a turkey, placed it against the wall and spray painted black around the perimeter of the silouette. I removed the silouette. I took the wall to the contest and said my turkey was in an atomic blast and all that was left was its essense. I won first prize, a $150 gift certificate at the local art supply store. I bet if I checked, I still have a slide (yes, I'm that old) of that piece.
Yeah, I have lots of slides as well, and by the time I was in Grad, they were passe. Its sad that all my 35mm documentation can now be surpassed by my 200 dollar bar of soap sized cannon. Well almost.
Agree that is pop art, but I would change my route if I lived in Chicago and had to go by it every day. A friend of mine says that she has done that. Yet next time I am up there I will probably go and get my picture taken with it. Then on to the Institute to visit Excavation.
Oh, and you won't have to do much convincing about nascar. The only problem would be getting all the fans to wear french cuffs or little black dresses to the race, and the vendors might not like all the little crackers and brie in the hot sun.