Art Everywhere: A Missed Opportunity?

Art Everywhere

Curator Tom Emery argues that the return of Art Everywhere is destined to fade into the background…

After launching last year, giant public exhibition Art Everywhere is set to makes its return from 21 July to 31 August 2014, with voting currently open to choose the 25 artworks that will be displayed on the nation’s bus stops, train stations, billboards, and mostly likely everywhere else that advertising space exists.

Art Everywhere brands itself as being ‘a very very big art show’, replacing the ever-present advertising that takes up much of our public space with great British artworks. Simply as a break from regular advertising, it’s a welcome presence. That said, it is more advertising campaign than exhibition (not that this is an inherently bad thing), with each of last year’s offerings labelled with the gallery where you could find the pictured artwork.

The idea of flooding public space with art is hard to argue with, and some aspects of the project are great. Once you become aware that the project has started, the act of finding your first piece of Art Everywhere is a satisfying experience. The nature of the public environment can also provide some fun correspondences and contrasts between artwork and location; seeing Sarah Lucas’ brazenly sexual work directly outside a Yates’s in Manchester city centre seemed amusingly appropriate.

“The execution of the project is seriously flawed… An image of an artwork is not a replacement for an artwork”

However, the execution of the project is seriously flawed. Firstly, an image of an artwork is not a replacement for an artwork, thus negating any claims that Art Everywhere can have to be exhibiting artworks. Best exemplifying this problem is the decision to include images of sculptures, which makes absolutely no sense; a picture of Epstein’s The Rock Drill is never going to function as an artwork. Sculpture only exists in three dimensions — this isn’t hard to grasp.

The shortlist of artworks isn’t without its problems either. Last year prominently included British favourites — and art-historically irrelevant — Pre-Raphaelites (thankfully, there are less of them this year). This year’s list includes two works each from perennial crowd-pleasers David Hockney, JMW Turner and William Hogarth in the longlist open to public voting, (correctly) implying that Britain doesn’t have many great artists to choose from before 1950. This year’s options also include a few strange selections, such as a study of clouds from John Constable that will surely look odd when blown-up to billboard-size, and what must be the only Lucien Freud painting without nudity.

There’s an inherent safe-ness to the list of artworks available to choose from, which is probably the only way to encourage public voting, but this ensures that the end result conforms to the standard practice of boring public art. The concept of public voting is also somewhat misleading; while it makes the project seem democratic and accessible, the voting audience are surely an audience who already engage with art on a regular basis.

“A nationwide exhibition where art replaces advertising is a fantastic concept, yet here it is carried out in the most unexciting, risk-averse way imaginable”

The biggest issue with Art Everywhere is that it holds the beginning of a great idea. A nationwide exhibition where art replaces advertising is a fantastic concept, yet here it is carried out in the most unexciting, risk-averse way imaginable. Artist Bob and Roberta Smith (see our Big Interview here) is a champion of Art Everywhere; so why not commission him to make a new work for the show? Smith makes art that would function in poster-format, and his relatively high public profile wouldn’t even make him a risky choice.

What would be risky, and brilliant, is if Art Everywhere would take this approach with the entire exhibition. Instead of exhibiting replicas of Constables and Freuds, why not commission works ‘to flood our streets’ from contemporary artists, who can create something that will function as a poster or a billboard? There is even a precedent for such a project; Mark Titchner is an artist who has repeatedly used billboards to exhibit his work, and Birmingham-based gallery Eastside Projects have their own billboard outside the gallery which has been used to exhibit artists such as Liam Gillick and Carey Young.

Unfortunately, it’s hard to see Art Everywhere taking such a risk, when it’s easier to play it safe and give the public something inoffensive and, well, boring. And it’s such a great shame. The project could have been something revolutionary; instead, it’s something designed (and destined) to fade into the background.

Tom Emery

See what we thought of the inaugural Art Everywhere exhibition last year here

Browse the longlist and cast your vote before 21 June 2014 at arteverywhere.org.uk

Posted on 10/06/2014 by thedoublenegative