Google Art Project Expands - NYTimes.com
12/8/12 6:08 PM
APRIL 3, 2012, 12:50 PM
Google Art Project Expands By ROBERTA SMITH
With news conferences in Chicago and Paris on Tuesday, Google announced the start of its expanded, technologically refined Google Art Project. This new program, the company said, "goes global." The numbers alone speak for themselves. The project -- which began in January 2011 and gave users access to artworks and views of galleries in 17 participating museums -- now includes 151 institutions. Initially the museums were in the United States and in eight European nations; 40 countries around the world are now represented. Museums in Australia, Japan, India, the Philippines, Israel and Qatar have entered the Google art universe. And while the initial project gave access to 1,000 paintings, visitors may now look at more than 32,000 works in all art media, from aboriginal rock art to textiles, glass and ceramics. The number of American museums participating is 29, up from four. The Museum of Modern Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Frick Collection in New York and the Freer Gallery of Art in Washington have now been joined by the Brooklyn Museum; the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; the Philadelphia Museum of Art; the National Gallery of Art in Washington; the Art Institute of Chicago; the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles, among others. The White House is included, with 139 artworks by 96 artists, as is the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum, with 1,568 works by 493 artists. The Brooklyn Museum, offers 944 works by 264 artists, many of them in the area of decorative arts. Technologically, Google said, the information is more accessible, the pictures clearer and the navigating far more fluid. There are more options, like the ability to comment on works that viewers select for their personalized galleries, and also to share them, as well as greatly expanded educational options, including a section somewhat strangely titled "Look Like an Expert" and one called "DIY" that connects to 10 additional educational and art sites, including the Met's Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History, the Khan Academy's SmartHistory and the National Gallery of Art's NGA Classroom.
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