Be a guest curator for the largest art exhibition in America! Beginning today, you can vote for your favorite American artworks from art museums across the country, including the DMA. Art Everywhere US is a public celebration of great American art.
The process to create this celebration began this past New Year’s Eve, when I e-mailed the directors of four leading U.S. museums—the Art Institute of Chicago, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the National Gallery of Art, and the Whitney Museum of American Art—asking if they would jump in feet first with the DMA and the Outdoor Advertising Association of America to create a 100-work synopsis of American art history. I was thrilled when everyone agreed right away, and by January 2014 we were off to the races.
I asked each museum to submit 30 works, yielding 150, and I had the unenviable task of winnowing the list down to 20 each to reach 100. We were seeking a balanced result, representing every period of American art from across the nation, with attention to ethnic and gender diversity, and the inclusion of iconic works alongside whimsical ones. We stuck to two-dimensional works given their planned reproduction on out-of-home media.
It is now up to you to help decide which of these 100 works will be part of the first Art Everywhere US project.
From now through May 7, you can vote for your favorite 10 works daily to help inform the final 50 works. The final works will be reproduced this August on as many as 50,000 outdoor displays from coast to coast. Make sure you get to see your favorite work of art on a billboard during your commute this summer, whether it’s the DMA’s The Icebergs, the Art Institute of Chicago’s American Gothic, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art’s Campbell’s Soup Can, the Whitney’s Little Big Painting, or the National Gallery’s George Washington. We aren’t trying to stack the deck in the DMA’s favor, but instead are enjoying the playful spirit of this massive endeavor. Vote early and vote often! And please share your votes with #ArtEverywhereUS and connect online.
(Images in slide show: Jasper Johns, Three Flags, 1958. Encaustic on canvas. 30 5/8 x 45 1/2 x 4 5/8 in. Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, Art © Jasper Johns, Licensed by VAGA, New York, N.Y.; Gilbert Stuart, George Washington, c. 1821. Oil on wood. 26 3/8 x 21 5/8 in. National Gallery of Art, Washington, Gift of ThomasJefferson Coolidge IV in memory of his great-grandfather, Thomas Jefferson Coolidge, his grandfather, Thomas Jefferson Coolidge II,and his father, Thomas Jefferson Coolidge III.; Frederic Edwin Church, The Icebergs, 1861. Oil on canvas. 64 1/2 x 112 1/2 in. (1 m 63.83 cm x 2 m 85.751 cm). Dallas Museum ofArt, gift of Norma and Lamar Hunt.; Roy Lichtenstein, Cold Shoulder, 1963. Oil and magna on canvas. 68 1/2 x 48 in. Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Gift of RobertH. Halff through the Modern and Contemporary Art Council (M.2005.38.5). Photo courtesy of the Roy Lichtenstein Foundation, by Kevin Ryan.; 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.)
Maxwell L. Anderson is the Eugene McDermott Director of the DMA.
