The Dallas Museum of Art took a bold step by returning to free admission in 2013, and now the museum is making artwork even more accessible by joining together with four other prominent museums for the "Art Everywhere US" project.
From August 4 through September 1, pieces from the DMA, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the National Gallery of Art and the Whitney Museum of American Art, chosen with the help of the public, will be displayed in a variety of traditional advertising spaces like billboards, subway trains and buses.
The public is invited to vote for their 10 favorite artworks at ArtEverywhereUS.org.
Now through May 7, the public is invited to go to ArtEverywhereUS.org and select their 10 favorite artworks out of 100 options from the museums' combined collections. Those votes will help the curators come up with a final list of around 50 pieces that will be announced on June 20.
It should be interesting to see how the voting goes, as enormously popular artworks like Grant Wood's American Gothic and Andy Warhol's Campbell's Soup Can will be going up against works that are not as well known but have equal, if not greater, quality to them.
Among the choices from the DMA are John Singleton Copley’s Sarah Sherburne Langdon, James Rosenquist's Paper Clip and Frederic Edwin Church's The Icebergs.
Once the artworks go on display in August, they won't simply be pretty things to look at as people go about their daily lives. The project will utilize the app Blippar to offer "augmented reality features" that will allow users to find out more background information about select artworks.
The exact cities where "Art Everywhere US" will be on display have not been chosen yet, but it is estimated that the total number of displays will be around 50,000.
In a statement, Maxwell L. Anderson, the Eugene McDermott Director of the Dallas Museum of Art, said that the project should prove to be a boon for museums and the public.
"The works you’ll see in Art Everywhere US tell the story of America, express our creativity and reflect who we are," Anderson said. "We hope Art Everywhere US will inspire all of us to learn more about America’s artistic treasures, past and present, and discover many more of the great works in our nation’s museums.”
Grant Wood, American Gothic, 1930. Oil on Beaver Board. 30 3 4 x 25 3/4 in. (78 x 65.3 cm). The Art Institute of Chicago, Friends of American Art Collection.
