Art Everywhere project to turn UK into ‘world’s biggest art gallery’

Reed, who co founded Innocent Drinks, founded the charitable project in collaboration with the Art Fund, Tate, and the poster industry.

Reed says, ‘It’s about flooding our streets with art and turning the UK into the world’s largest art gallery.

‘We’re going to do so by taking thousands of poster sites across the country and putting the greatest bits of British art there as chosen by the great British public.’

The project is being financed by a crowd funding model, with members of the public donating money in return for merchandise created by artist Bob & Roberta Smith, which 101 helped design.

101 will also design the final posters to be displayed, and came on board having worked with The Art Fund and Innocent Drinks on previous projects.

According to Stephen Deuchar, director of the Art Fund, this will be the first major art project in which the public can become ‘patrons’ by funding the cost of printing the posters. The posters themselves and the billboard spaces have been donated for free by poster companies.

On 21 June, the Art Everywhere site will display a shortlist of 100 artworks, which the public can then vote to see displayed on billboards across the UK. There will be 50 works in total, which will be displayed on an estimated 15,000 – 30,000 poster sites.

Tate director Sir Nicholas Serota says, ‘We are delighted to have partnered with Art Everywhere in a celebration of British art that will bring some inspiring images to our streets and provoke conversation and debate about the characteristics of Britain and qualities of British Art’.

Other partners involved in organising and curating the project include media agency Vizeum, smartphone image recognition platform Blippar and arts advocacy company Arts Media People.

The artworks will be displayed from 10- 25 August. You can donate and find out more at http://arteverywhere.org.uk/.