Who We Are
As the university’s public art program, Landmarks enriches the lives of students and campus visitors by making great works of art broadly accessible and free to all. With more than forty works of modern and contemporary art on view, the Landmarks collection is one of the most distinguishing features of UT’s campus — shaping impressions, stimulating curiosity and creating a distinctive environment for scholarship and learning. Landmarks projects are viewed by thousands of people every day. For many, the collection provides the first opportunity to engage with great works of art by some of the most admired and promising artists of our time.
What We’re Fundraising For
Landmarks believes that great art should be free and accessible to all and envisions the collection as a teaching tool to train artists, curators, educators, critics and collection managers. We provide free access to the 46 works in our collection, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. That access offers great benefits for all who engage with the collection. While major construction projects pay for the art at UT, Landmarks needs help to maintain and conserve the collection and train student volunteers. Your gift will support the Landmarks Preservation Guild (LPG), a committed group of volunteer interns who examine and maintain the modern and contemporary art in the Landmarks collection and keep the university a beautiful and enriching place.
Since 2008, Landmarks has had 220 LPG student volunteers, totaling more than 5,100 volunteer hours. LPG volunteers devote time and energy to preserve works of public art so they may be enjoyed by future generations. Volunteer interns learn maintenance methods through periodic training sessions led by a conservator. These include techniques to monitor and record changes in works of art, to wash and wax outdoor sculpture, and to clean works of art made of wood, stone, bronze, steel, and painted metal.
Your Impact
LPG helped me realize that conservation chemistry is something that really interests me. It also opened my eyes to all of the different types of preservation/conservation out there and I don't really look at things the same way anymore because of it.” - Kallie Kothmann, B.A. Art History and German.
“I really appreciated all the documentation and close looking that went along with maintaining Square Tilt. Because I was only focusing on one sculpture during my time at Landmarks, I was able to gain a good understanding of all parts of the object, its condition, and what to look out for. That deep knowledge I found important, so I tried to take it with me. Landmarks also prepared me on how to talk with others about what I’m doing. Since Square Tilt was right in front of the PCL, a busy library on campus, I would receive a lot of questions about conservation which led me to develop an elevator pitch for the work I was doing with Landmarks—a very helpful skill.” - Ashley Stanford, B.A. Art History
