Blippar hits the streets to document public reaction to Art Everywhere US

It’s been two weeks since 58 pieces of great American art were reprinted a whopping 50,000 times on enormous posters and hung up all over the US.

Andy Warhol, Roy Lichenstein, Romare Bearden, Mary Cassatt, Cindy Sherman, Chuck Close and Georgia O’Keeffe are just some of the legendary painters, photographers, illustrators and printers whose iconic works appear on street corners, billboards, buses, bus stops and Metro walls all over the nation as part of the extraordinarily impressive #ArtEverywhereUS project.

So, a fortnight on, what did the great American people and press think of the ambitious, nationwide, al fresco exhibition?

And, more importantly (we think), what did everyone make of the fact that Blippar partnered with the artistic enterprise to make 35,000 of the images interactive, releasing further information about both Art Everywhere US and the individual works in question when blipped using a mobile phone or tablet? Well?

Plenty of forward-thinking international media outlets wrote about the project, with TechCrunch saying ‘The use of Blippar with art is a feature that is as refreshing as seeing artwork on advertising billboards.’ Thanks, guys!

The Drum explained: ‘Owners of iOS, Android and Windows phones can download Blippar, the mobile augmented reality and image recognition platform, to receive information and audio guides about the paintings.’

Business Insider helpfully pointed out the Twitter hashtag for the exhibition, writing: ‘Art Everywhere is integrating social media to create buzz. Passersby are encouraged to take selfies in front of the painting using the hashtag #ArtEverywhereUS to win a prints of one of the project's artworks.’

Engadget, meanwhile, pointed out that the artworks’ interactive nature helps ‘if you slept during most of your art classes and can’t really name many of the paintings’. (You’re welcome.)

Team Blippar also took to the streets of to find out what spectators thought of the project, with our New York contingent discovering lots of traffic building up on the corner of Hudson and Dominick in Tribeca where Chuck Close’s 1969 piece Phil is hanging….

The first excited blippee we spotted said: ‘I've been here all week from 7am to 5pm. I see a lot of people stopping at this corner and taking pictures. Lots. The blipp is really cool. I'd be interested in that. I want to show my wife. She'd really be into it.’

The second person we spoke to said (after we’d showed him how to blipp the poster): ‘Oh, so THAT's what everyone is looking at! I work nearby and I see people stopping here all the time. That's what everyone is doing every day!’

Twitter was also all of a flutter, with users snapping photos of the works through Blippar and posting the results on social media.

The exhibition is on until the end of August, so there’s still plenty of time to scour the country for blippable works.

Alternatively, if you’re based outside the US visit the brilliant Art Everywhere US website to see what all the fuss is about. All the beautiful images are reprinted there, along with plenty of information with which to impress your friends in the pub.

Happy blipping!