Just a quick post about a really fantastic and very public project on public sculpture.  The International Network for the Conservation of Contemporary Art – North America (INCCA-NA) teamed up with Wikipedia’s WikiProject Public Art in August 2012 to launch the Artist Research Project, selecting the American sculptor Tony Smith as the inaugural artist. The project is an open call to photograph, research, document, and geolocate over one hundred Tony Smith sculptures around the world in order to create a complete online inventory, accessible to all. The goal is to “increase awareness about these works and therefore allow for the continued advocacy for their proper care and maintenance.”¹

The project has received a good amount of press coverage since its launch (NYTimes, Art21 Blog, Modern Art Notes Podcast, etc.), but there are still plenty of sculptures that need to be catalogued. Beyond the very noble conservation issues this project can highlight, it also has the potential to serve as a substantive resource for scholars of Tony Smith and provide a model for collaborative research initiatives on public art and beyond – plus if you contribute an entry, you get a free t-shirt.

For an overview of the project and instructions on how to contribute, visit:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Public_art/TheArtistResearchProject/TonySmith

1 http://incca-na.org/programs/artist-research-project/tony-smith-wiki/