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Tony Smith has been selected as the inaugural artist in the Artist Research Project, an initiative developed by the Voices in Contemporary Art (VoCA).

The goal of this project is to use a community-based approach to document and research every outdoor sculpture by Tony Smith in the world using Wikipedia and Flickr, and therefor build an accurate and highly-accessible resource for the future. Along the way we hope that we'll raise awareness about the importance of his artworks and the need to take good care of them.

While Smith made over 50 outdoor sculptures, he often made them in editions, usually of three, but sometimes of more or less. Today there are over 100 outdoor sculptures by Smith in the world, located in over 20 different U.S. states, and on three continents.[1] It is hoped that before what would have been his 100th birthday, September 23, the goal of this project will be achieved.

The success of this project relies on those that care about Tony Smith's artworks and want to make a difference in helping to document an important contemporary artist's work in the world's most accessible and important online encyclopedia.

The process

Wandering Rocks (5/5) (1967) at the Kröller-Müller Museum in the Netherlands

While this may seem like a somewhat complicated, it's really not as hard as it looks. All told, you should be able to make an article in Wikipedia and upload your images to Flickr in 2-6 hours, depending on your experience level and research skills.

Choose an artwork

An accurate and up-to-date List of Tony Smith Outdoor Sculptures has been made recently. Remember, it's helpful if you chose an artwork that you can visit in person and take high quality images of it, but not strictly necessary. Once you've chosen which artwork you're going to work on, go to the "Talk" section of this page (you can access the "Talk" section by clicking the tab at the top left) and tell everyone which one you'll be working on.

Research your artwork

There are a number of excellent publications on Smith's work. It's highly recommended that you have access to the most important publications (see below for a list).[2],[3],[4],[5],[6] Just as important as international publications about Smith's outdoor sculptures are the articles in local newspapers and publications that provide first-hand histories. Ideally, you should visit the library in the town or city in which your sculpture is located so that you can collect good information and learn everything you can about your sculpture -- of course, there's also lots to be harvested from good web-based searches.

Make a good Wikipedia article about your Tony Smith outdoor sculpture

Members of Wikiproject: Public art have developed a set of excellent resources that will help you create articles about Tony Smith's artworks. Each of them was developed as step-by-step resources to make creating articles about public art in Wikipedia as easy as possible. Wikipedia can be challenging, so take a moment to learn from others. There are three guides:

  • The Public Art New Article Guide will save you time and make creating new articles about art in Wikipedia much easier. It automatically sets up an infobox and standardized headings in your article.
  • The Public Art Style Guide has been designed specifically to help you create and edit articles about art in a consistent style.
  • The Public Art Image Guide was created to help you easily learn about the use of images of art in Wikipedia and the Wikimedia Commons. This guide includes a discussion on image copyright and many useful resources.

A good example of an article created through this project is Gracehoper (2/3). If it's easier, feel free to copy directly from that format.

Update the list of Tony Smith outdoor sculptures

Add a link to your article from List of Tony Smith outdoor sculptures. Add the artwork's coordinates and any other new information to that list.

Make excellent images of your Tony Smith outdoor sculpture

While copyright law around contemporary artworks can be complicated, vary from country to country, and depend on the owner of the artwork, it is important to have excellent and current images of every artwork. You should take at least four photos, but probably more. Be systematic and take at least the following images:

  • Front
  • Right
  • Back
  • Left
  • Details

Upload your images to Flickr

There are a lot of good images in Flickr of outdoor sculptures by Smith, but we're looking for the freshest, so upload yours there. Make sure you name your images well, add them to your map, add tags, etc. Flickr has been around for a long time so there's lots of good information on how to use it in the Flickr FAQ. Also be sure to license your images as Creative Commons so that you can easily use them in Wikipedia, or even upload them to Wikimedia Commons.

Add your images to the Tony Smith Flickr Group

The Tony Smith Outdoor Sculptures group has been made specially for this project. After you've uploaded and edited your photos, join this group and add your photos.

Tell everyone that you made an article about a Tony Smith sculpture

INCCA-NA is in the process of developing a commemorative t-shirt with the Tony Smith Estate and Static Made for those that participate in this project. The only way to get one of these limited edition t-shirts is to do this project. When you're done with your article leave a note on User:RichardMcCoy's talk page (he'd be happy to hear from you, also, if you're having trouble along the way).

Some notes

  • Matthew Marks Gallery represents the Tony Smith Estate. Their webpage has a lot of good information about his works, including a collection of many articles about Smith in their "Press Packet"[7], a very good selected bibliography[8], and a biography/timeline of Smith's career.[9]
  • No complete inventory has been published that identifies the current location of all of these works, but in the 1990s Save Outdoor Sculpture! (SOS!) participants completed an inventory and assessment of 83 of these sculptures.[10]
  • The bibliographic article about Tony Smith really needs some help. While it's tangential to this project, it sure would be great to have an excellent article about him to go along with excellent articles about all of his outdoor sculptures.
  • You are welcome to document any Tony Smith artwork you'd like, but this project is currently focused on those large-scale artworks that were designed to be exhibited outside. Another list can be created that collects articles about artworks that are housed indoors (for example, drawings, paintings, and other sculptures).

List of good references about Tony Smith's Sculptures

  1. ^ "Tony Smith". Matthew Marks Gallery. Retrieved 5 July 2012.
  2. ^ Storr, Robert (1998). Tony Smith: Architect, Painter, Sculptor. New York: The Museum of Modern Art. ISBN 0-87070-071-5.
  3. ^ Tony Smith: Not an Object. Not a Monument. Germany: Göttingen : Steidl. 2007. ISBN 978-3-86521-313-6.
  4. ^ Tuchman, Phyllis. "Tony Smith: Architect, Painter, Sculptor". artnet.com.
  5. ^ "Snapshot: Tony Smith". National Gallery of Art. Retrieved 5 July 2012.
  6. ^ Senie, Harriet F. (November 1998). "Re-Approaching Tony Smith". Sculpture Magazine. 17 (9). Retrieved 26 September 2012.
  7. ^ "Press Packet" (PDF). Matthew Marks Gallery. Retrieved 5 July 2012.
  8. ^ "Bibliography". Matthew Marks Gallery. Retrieved 5 July 2012.
  9. ^ "Biography". Matthew Marks Gallery. Retrieved 5 July 2012.
  10. ^ "SOS! data on Tony Smith Sculptures". Smithsonian Institution Research Information System. Retrieved 4 July 2012.
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