Art Everywhere?

The largest exhibition of its kind, Art Everywhere opened this week. Freya Carr considers the results…

On Picton Road, Liverpool, there’s a stately – or rather, queenly – figure surveying the build-up of traffic at the lights. It’s a poster of Elizabeth I, and it isn’t an advertising gimmick capitalizing on the renewed appetite for all things royal. It’s the Pelican Portrait, by Nicholas Hilliard, and it’s here as part of Art Everywhere.

Art Everywhere aims to give the UK public the opportunity to see ‘art instead of advertising’ for two weeks this summer. The exhibition is huge, featuring 57 of our best-loved artworks displayed on 22,000 poster sites.

Art by the roadside, in shopping precincts, at train and tube stations, at the bus stop – even on the side of your bus or cab. Art in places which see enough footfall for Art Everywhere to estimate that between its launch this week until its end on the 26th August, an impressive 90% of us could see at least one of the posters.

“The resulting list is a pleasingly comprehensive one”

The artworks are all chosen by the public, or at least by that portion of the public who voted. The resulting list is a pleasingly comprehensive one, ranging from the compulsory John Constable to more niche pieces, such as a striking still from Zarina Bhimji’s film Out of Blue (main image).

It is perhaps unsurprising that paintings dominate, but heartening to see sculpture, photography, film and installation pieces represented too. To most, the final list will present a good balance between the known and the new.

Since Monday, all major cities in the UK have been home to at least some of the selected works. According to Art Everywhere, there are a respectable 34 pieces in Liverpool, and many more across the North West as a whole.

Where are they exactly? That’s been an undeniable sticking point for many, with the map provided on the Art Everywhere site giving only a vague location; a town or part of a city, rather than a street or postcode. Of course you might be lucky enough to have an artwork on your street, but if you’re searching blind that promise of ‘art instead of advertising’ can soon start to frustrate.

Even if you see one it might only be a glimpse. In the London Road area, mechanical billboards show the work of Tracy Emin and Sarah Lucas; but after a few seconds the conveyor rolls, and the art is replaced by adverts. The defiant stare of Lucas’ self-portrait (above) is compelling, but cut disappointingly short.

A digital billboard in Lime Street station shows several artworks spliced, again, with adverts and news headlines. Tacita Dean’s Majesty transcends the limitations of this medium with ease, as do pieces by Mona Hatoum and Rose Finn-Kelcey. The definition is poor, however, and as a result there’s an indistinctness about works by William Holman Hunt and William Hogarth, which robs them of their depth.

Moreover, both the title of each artwork and the name of its creator are totally unreadable. This renders the display more puzzling than profound; there’s little that enables the viewer to find out more about either the artwork, or the Art Everywhere project.

“The huge billboard showing Ophelia on Edge Lane is an incongruous, and therefore intriguing thing”

It’s unfortunate, because when the artwork isn’t flickering, rotating or entirely elusive it is an arresting sight. The huge billboard showing Ophelia on Edge Lane is an incongruous, and therefore intriguing thing. Cornelia Parker’s Cold Dark Matter: An Exploded View, a very different kind of artwork, is displayed to similar effect outside a petrol station off County Road.

On Linacre Lane Winifred Margaret Knights’ Portrait of a Young Woman provides the perfect example of how Art Everywhere can be a success. Pressed behind perspex, framed in black plastic and exhibited at a bus stop, it might be considered that the picture isn’t being displayed to its favour.

Yet seen in the yellow light of a dull sundown – impossible in the carefully controlled confines of a gallery – it seems enlivened by the very ordinariness of its surrounds. It’s a totally unexpected sight, and unexpectedly moving too.

If you got on at this stop every morning you might well become fond of the picture. If you weren’t familiar with it, you might look up the artist and her other work. Art Everywhere isn’t simply about aesthetic pleasure, central though that may be to our enjoyment of art. In thrusting these artworks into everyday spaces the organisers are clearly aiming to engage with a wider audience than those who regularly attend galleries.

The intention is to prompt a range of reflections; from simple realisations of the power of art, to thoughts about its social role, to musings on the prevalence of the advertising space being used. The exhibition definitely excels here, genuinely encouraging freedom of response.

Art Everywhere can’t be called a total success – yet. A 10 second sighting of a blurred-out masterpiece can certainly leave a lot to be desired. None of this year’s glitches, however, seem insurmountable. And they haven’t overshadowed the fact that this is a refreshing, enjoyable and thought-provoking way to exhibit art.

Freya Carr

Art Everywhere continues nationwide until 26th August

Posted on 16/08/2013 by thedoublenegative