Art Everywhere - on billboards around the UK

The Art Everywhere Exhibition 2013 opened on 12 August and can be seen on billboards around the UK until 25 August 2013.

There are 57 works of art on 22,000 poster sites around the country - and people are snapping them and posting them to the Art Everywhere Facebook Page.

This is the longlist of artworks in alphabetical order by surname of the artist which the public voted on to determine The Top Ten British Masterpieces and the 57 featured artworks in the exhibition.

Art Everywhere is organised by the Tate and The Art Fund.  This video which marks the launch of the exhibition explains what it's about.



Here's some comments about the execution:

• the use of billboards/poster sites to display publicly owned artwork to the nation is a brilliant idea.  The presentation - with a goodly amount of white space - means it should really get people noticing the art
• The information pages for each featured artwork are just enough to get read AND be informative.  Judge for yourself - this is Blotter by Peter Doig.  However it's a real pity they didn't do this for each and every artwork in the long list too.
• I like the fact that all the poster sites are interactive.  The information about every artwork can be accessed via an app - and you just need to hold up your app to the pic and it will tell you all about it.  To access the information you need to first download the free Blippr app - available from the iStore or Google Play.
• the use of #ArtEverywhere to share thoughts and snaps on Twitter and Instagram should mean news of it gets around!
• there's a further interactive opportunity through people posting snaps of posters found to the Facebook Page
• the map on the website doesn't work - it's just a hotch potch of flags from far too high a level.  To work properly it needs a zoom facility.

The Guardian are running a competition for those who can spot all 57 works of art.

Promoting a nation of art collectors?

This initiative follows on from the one I wrote about an installation of new art on the London Underground - Labyrinth - Art on the Underground by Mark Wallinger

The idea of creating a large enough number of artworks which are all publicly accessible and then encouraging people to find them and snap them - as if playing a game - is an interesting one.

The question is will it switch people on to the idea of collecting art for real?

What do you think about this and similar initiatives?  Have you spotted a work of art near you?

More about art in the UK

My websites provide one bookmark for access to details about the top art galleries and museums in the UK

• Top 10 Art Galleries and Museums in the World - Did you know that five of the top 20 art galleries and museums in the world are in London?
• The Top Ten Museums in London