Billboards along I-15 part of nationwide art exhibit

This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2014, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.

It's being billed as "the world's largest outdoor art show," and people in Utah may see some of it while driving Interstate 15.

The project, called Art Everywhere US, launched today nationwide, starting with the digital billboards across New York's Times Square.

The exhibit features 58 classic and contemporary works of American art, ranging from John Singleton Copley's "Watson and the Shark" (1778) to Cindy Sherman's untitled self-portrait (2008). It includes such iconic paintings as Gilbert Stuart's portrait of George Washington, Grant Wood's "American Gothic," Edward Hopper's "Nighthawks," Jasper Johns' "Three Flags" and Andy Warhol's "Campbell's Soup Can."

The works were chosen from the collections of five major museums: the Art Institute of Chicago; the Dallas Museum of Art; the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA); the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.; and the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York.

Thanks to a collaboration between the museums and the Outdoor Advertising Association of America (OAAA), the paintings can be seen now through Aug. 31 on as many as 50,000 digital and static displays — billboards, bus shelter posters, airport dioramas, movie-theater trailers and so on — in each of the 50 states.

Among those locations are 10 billboards along Interstate 15 in Utah, between Layton and Orem. (Consult the map for locations.)

At the Times Square launch ceremony, Donna De Salvo, chief curator and deputy director for programs at Whitney Museum of American Art, praised the program, "a project that situates extraordinary images by great American artists in the unique cultural landscape that is the United States."