Compare and contrast.

It’s an old school assignment.

Both the City & County of Honolulu, and the State of Hawaii, have significant collections of public art.

The city has a database with a list of each item in its collection, with details. Each entry identifies the artist, the location, acquisition date, and includes a link to a photograph. This database is available for download from data.honolulu.gov.

The city also has an interactive map for finding its public art that is publicly accessible.

These appear to be light years ahead of the well-funded State Foundation on Culture and the Arts, which has a database of its “Art in Public Places” collection which unfortunately doesn’t identify the locations where individual pieces are installed. I thought there was such a database, but I wasn’t able to track it down today.

Contrast with Atlanta’s robust public art program. Walking around this morning, we stopped to appreciate a large sculpture near a downtown train station and noticed this sign:

Yup. They’ve got public art, and a public art audio tour featuring a small selection of items displayed downtown. You can access brief descriptions with your cell phone.

Here’s a description of the audio tour:

The Public Art Audio Tour currently offers information and history behind 22 unique artworks. Beginning at Andrew Young Plaza , hugging the corners of Centennial and Woodruff parks, this tour gives visitors an opportunity to experience Downtown in a unique, informative and exciting way. This tour is free and open to the public.

All audio tours are available through the host phone number (404) 260-5532. Just follow the prompts. See below to listen to the artworks through the site!

You can download the audio tour map, and then listen to descriptions of each item by entering the item number.

They’ve also got a map showing the location of each item in their collection, along with a searchable database available at their Arts Hub, where you can search by the artist’s name and/or location.

Impressive.