Ahem: At left is Matt Johnson’s 2004 sculpture Breadface, which graced a thousand banners (maybe more) as the promotional image for the UCLA Hammer Museum’s 2005 Thing show. Johnson is a hot property — in a review of Johnson’s recent LA debut at Blum & Poe, LATer Christopher Knight proclaimed him the love child of John Frederick Peto and David Smith. (Picture that.)

At the right is a still from a recent Nissan commerical for the new Nissan Sentra. The still is from Day 3, one of seven Sentra ads that presents some dude living out of his car for a week. (How hipster! How clever! Becuase gosh, who wouldn’t want to live out of a mid-level Japanese car?) I’d guess that Nissan’s ad firm TBWA\Chiat\Day — which, wouldn’t ya know it, is based in Los Angeles — was plenty familiar with Breadface, wouldn’t you?

Related: Marc Horowitz, the “star” of the commercial, blogs (barely) about this. Adweek’s Richard Williamson reports on the campaign.