Wikipedia Loves Art (US-UK), the name being a play off Valentine's Day, was a scavenger hunt and free content photography contest among museums and cultural institutions worldwide aimed at illustrating Wikipedia articles. The event ran for the whole month of February 2009. Although there are planned events at each location, participants were encouraged to go on their own at any time during the month.
The original "Wikipedia Loves Art" project was a collaboration of the US and UK, but since then several variations of the Wikipedia:Wikipedia Loves Art initiative have been held or are in planning in a number countries.
The project was coordinated by the Brooklyn Museum, with the participation of the Carnegie Museum of Art, the Film Society of Lincoln Center, the Honolulu Academy of Arts, the Houston Museum of Natural Science, the Hunter Museum of American Art, the Indianapolis Museum of Art, The Jewish Museum (New York), the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of Modern Art, the New York Historical Society, the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the Taft Museum of Art, the Victoria and Albert Museum. In all, there are 15 different museums and cultural institutions participating.
The project is an evolution from the Wikipedia Takes Manhattan event in October 2008.
The photos from the events can be found at Commons:Category:Wikipedia Loves Art.
Photographer Registration Now Open, Please Register
All posted at Wikipedia Loves Art Flickr Group. Note: there are multiple sets of guidelines posted on that page.
For the winning team in the New York area (who shot at least partially at the Brooklyn Museum to accomplish checking off their list), Associate Curator of Photography Patrick Amsellem will give a tour through Brooklyn Museum's recent photography acquisitions.
20 free admission passes for Carnegie Museums of Art and Natural History; A collection of Carnegie Museum of Art catalogues; Four free passes to the April's Art in Bloom Cocktails Go Green cocktail. Must be 21 years or older to enter.;Free one-year membership to Carnegie Museums
A five-movie series pass to one of our film series and a one-year subscription to Film Comment magazine.
Robert Frank's The Americans photography book, 2 Friends of Film Friday memberships, and 4 passes to ARTafterDARK.
A family membership and 4 tickets to Terra Cotta Warriors: Guardians of China's First Emperor, opening May 22.
1 household membership, 4 museum passes and a $15 gift certificate to the museum store.
The photographer with the most points (who shot at IMA) will win a fabulous prize package that includes a FREE iPod Touch, a fabulous IMA Blog t-shirt and a limited edition IMA Blog Rubik’s Cube.
The photographer with the most points (who shot at The Jewish Museum) will receive a collection of four exhibition catalogues from the museum's current and past exhibitions: Masterworks of The Jewish Museum, The Sculpture of Louise Nevelson, The Art of William Steig, and Chagall and the Artists of the Russian Jewish Theater.
The photographer or team with the most points (who shot at LACMA) will win a collection of five LACMA exhibition catalogues as well as four VIP tickets to the museum.
For the winning team in the New York area (who shot at least partially at the Met), Jeff L. Rosenheim, Curator in the Department of Photographs, will give a tour through the Walker Evans and the Picture Postcard exhibition. No substitutions or exchanges of the prize can be made.
Private after-hours tour for up to 10 people guided by an art historian.
1-Year Individual Membership to the New-York Historical Society and an exhibition catalog.
The winner(s) will receive a boxed set of books from our "Treasures from the Smithsonian American Art Museum" series. In addition they will receive a special American Art Museum tote with an imprinted design based on our Kogod Courtyard roof, a tie featuring our building, a boxed set of museum note cards, and a copy of our publication Temple of Invention, about our historic building.
Membership for each member of the winning team!
The photographer with the most points (who shot at the V&A) will win a prize to be announced from the V&A gift shop.
Pick your favorite pre-20th Century artist (or better yet, your Valentine's favorite), and, if you're a winner, we'll create or expand a Wikipedia article on one of their artworks. There are many Wikipedia articles on artworks by great artists that remain to be written.
There are participating museums and cultural institutions in 9 US cities.
It should be noted that the Film Society of Lincoln Center photography project of movie house architecture and equipment is open to photographers participating online throughout the US.
There are 6 participating museums and cultural institutions in New York City, and they will be coordinated together. Partners include the Students for Free Culture chapters at Columbia University and NYU, and the Creative Commons local office, in addition to meta:Wikimedia New York City.
User:Pharos is the Wikimedian contact for New York City.
User:Piotrus is the Wikimedian contact for Pittsburgh.
User:Austin Hair is the Wikimedian contact for Houston
Jeff is the Free Culture contact for Indiana.
User:Howcheng is the Wikimedian contact for Los Angeles.
User:DaveMenninger is the Wikimedian contact for Cincinnati.
User:Kaldari is the Wikimedian contact for Tennessee.
User:Swatjester is the Wikimedian contact for Washington D.C.
User:Editor at Large is the Wikimedian contact for Honolulu.
User:AndrewRT is the Wikimedian contact for London.
The photos will be uploaded by the participants to Flickr, and thence to Wikimedia Commons and Wikipedia, but photos should not be uploaded to Wikimedia until the museums finish notating the proper ID and credit line.
And thanks to drop.io for letting us help folks who've reached their upload limits.
Please sign your name using ~~~~ after the location(s) you can help at:
V&A are holding a brief launch event at 1pm at the main entrance to welcome everyone - but you can also turn up and start taking photos whenever you like! --Rob Myers (talk) 16:59, 31 January 2009 (UTC)
See also the 6th D.C. area Wikipedia Meetup