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Hello editors,

I have a question about Follow my dreams page. It is about a hand-painted mural by the italian artist TVBoy in 2022 in the city of Barcelona. This mural was originally called "Super Alexia" where you could read in the background the phrase: "Follow your dreams" with the footballer Alexia Putellas stepped out painted in a Superwoman outfit with a cape clearly visible on her back. In 2023, due to the multitude of vandalism acts, the artist decided to redo the mural, but neither the phrase nor the drawing of the player were the same. You can see the clear differences with the 2022 painting: [1] and the 2023 updated painting: [2]

In the Talk:Follow my dreams I proposed to make different articles because the new painting of 2023 should be treated as a completely different one even if it is located in the same place and on top of the old painting. The painting and the message in the background is totally different as you can read in the article: [3]

Throughout history, many painters have painted over other paintings and they have never been treated as updates of these but yes as a different works. It is currently an active dispute with user Kingsif that recently moved the page (Super Alexia to Follow my dreams) and reverses the edits I made because he wants to fix the date of the old 2022 painting but the name "Follow my dreams" was created in the year 2023 not in 2022.

What do you think?

Rainbow crossing (Toronto) and Rainbow crossings in California are nominated for deletion, if any project members are interested in weighing in or making article improvements. ---Another Believer _(Talk) 16:22, 22 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The article Pirouette: Turning Points in Design is scheduled to appear on WP:DYK. As the DYK "hook" that has been chosen links to our Morris Louis article, it might be an opportune time to review that article to make sure it is up-to-date. Cheers, Cl3phact0 (talk) 10:09, 24 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

There is a current RFC on Zak Smith that the project may be interested in weighing in. [4] Morbidthoughts (talk) 23:24, 24 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Rainbow crossing (Toronto) has been nominated for deletion, if any project members are interested in weighing in or making improvements. ---Another Believer _(Talk) 15:57, 25 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Ditto Rainbow crossings in California ---Another Believer _(Talk) 15:58, 25 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Ngoia Pollard Napaltjarri has been nominated for a good article reassessment. If you are interested in the discussion, please participate by adding your comments to the reassessment page. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, the good article status may be removed from the article. Z1720 (talk) 14:19, 27 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

International Stele Always Remember has been nominated for deletion, if any project members are interested in weighing in or making improvements. ---Another Believer _(Talk) 05:03, 28 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Boeing Galleries has been nominated for a good article reassessment. If you are interested in the discussion, please participate by adding your comments to the reassessment page. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, the good article status may be removed from the article. Z1720 (talk) 05:27, 28 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I am hoping to generate more of a conversation about standardizing Wikipedia articles about exhibitions - and the related but different subject of standardizing our approach and developing consensus around lists of exhibitions on artist pages. Although the manual of style has limited insight on these topics, there are sections that have hardly been the result of consensus and are generally still under debate, see: Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Visual arts#Lists of exhibitions. I generally put "Selected Exhibitions" as a section title instead of just "Exhibitions" e.g. Eduardo Navarro (artist) as exhibition lists can easily get long if the artist has a lengthy career or exhibition history. The number five exhibitions in the current manual of style recommendations on exhibitions seems arbitrary and way too short for reason though - as I said on the manual of style talk page linked above. Many many artist pages have more than five exhibitions, and in fact, exhibition lists, like discographies, are a great way to research the work of an artist. We need to come together as a community and figure out best practices around exhibition lists, as they are a critical part of the thousands of articles Wikipedia has on artists. I am going to be focusing on devising strategies to populate exhibition sections of Wikipedia articles about artists from Wikidata as part of my fellowship at MoMA that started this month. If you'd like to think more together with me on this, perhaps we could set up a group GLAM call or workshop on the topic. Thanks. Hexatekin (talk) 21:15, 12 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

In reality, "Selected exhibitions" is what the artists themselves prefer, they curate the lists of exhibitions to give a favourable impression of themselves. Wikipedia isn't in the business of writing CVs or resumés, we generally go for notability. If I'm writing (or editing) an artist's Wikipedia article I prefer "Notable exhibitions" as the section heading. Generally I would suggest culling long lists of participation in group exhibitions, unless the 'group' is very small, or the exhibition is of recognised importance, or the artist in question has been singled out for attention in an independent review. Solo exhibitions are a much surer sign of success, in my opinion, and any lists of exhibitions should concentrate on these. Sionk (talk) 21:59, 12 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

How does this subject relate to specific works. I just created City Landscape with its early presentations and three later retrospective tour details included. I did not even consider the possible MOS issues.-TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 23:46, 12 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Hi @Hexatekin and thank you for raising this issue! I raised something similar here a while ago now, hoping to get some clarity on a range of visual art style issues.

My two cents on exhibition lists: it is not a productive use of your time to further populate exhibition sections for artist bios; in fact, most artist bios could probably use trimming when it comes to the exhibitions section, as others have already pointed out. Exhibition lists are inherently context-less and do not provide any meaningful insight into the artist's style or life. They are also usually the easiest thing to find when researching an artist for a biography article, given that most notable artists working today produce professional CVs that make it very easy to find a full exhibition history. My approach in recent years has been to cull "Exhibitions" lists to a handful of the most notable solo shows (notability in terms of general notability and notability within an artist's career), and a very select few group shows (usually the most broadly recognized Biennials/Triennials/etc.).

Candidly, it can be really tempting to see the long, easily accessible lists of information available about visual artists, in particular their lists of works, lists of collections, or lists of exhibitions, and want to use those as the basis for creating or expanding articles on here. But these lists are not useful on their own, they are only useful when integrated into a broader biographical or historical narrative. That broader work of cleaning up and substantively expanding an artist biography with prose as opposed to lists is much more difficult but much more important. But I'll say, as someone with access to the MoMA Library collection, you are in the perfect position to do that broader work as part of your fellowship :)

For some examples of what that kind of expansion can look like for modern/contemporary artists, I'd suggest checking out the article history for Melvin Edwards or Sam Gilliam, two articles I expanded with significant prose after first being tempted to just gather up the context-free information available in their CVs. It took a long time, a lot of digging through old newspapers, magazines, and rare catalogues, but I think the articles are much better for it.

Hope this was somewhat helpful! 19h00s (talk) 00:20, 13 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

And just to put a finer point on the exhibition lists: because this information is often the most easily accessible when researching artists, many artist biography articles on here have essentially become nothing more than a list of exhibitions. Cleaning and culling those lists, many of them completely un-sourced, is something longtime visual arts editors have been working on for quite a while. So any change to the Visual Arts MOS to expand the recommended number of exhibitions in a list within a bio article would just encourage more of that kind of editing, which really adds nothing of value for the reader. It's like having an article for a musician with one line of biographical info but a 30-item discography; there's nothing the reader actually gains from knowing the titles of an artist's exhibitions with no other context. 19h00s (talk) 00:24, 13 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

++ Would be more than happy to be in dialogue about this in some sort of discussion group/email chain. I am not a GLAM worker myself (GLAM-adjacent, I guess), but I'm definitely interested in fine tuning our approach to style and structure when it comes to visual arts articles. It's been a source of confusion for me personally over the years as I've tried to clean up and expand articles. 19h00s (talk) 00:44, 13 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Ugh I'm sorry for adding so much discussion here, but one more thing. I think this discussion actually gets at a major structural issue with visual arts content. The art history and research side of my brain understands exactly where you're coming from, in that information like this (lists of an artist's exhibitions) is a critical part of the field. Cataloguing and documenting things like an artist's full exhibition history are standard and important elements of art historical research. They are also, notably, important parts of the commercial gallery ecosystem, helping establish an artist's career or a gallery's reputation. And that's where the field of art history's standards rub against Wikipedia's guidelines and culture. Wikipedia articles aren't meant to be a substitute for or equivalent of a commercial CV or academic monograph of a topic/subject/person. And an academic monograph or commercial CV are usually where you would find an unmediated exhibition history for an artist.

I do agree that exhibition lists (and to a certain extent lists of works) are somewhat analogous to discographies for musical artists. In that vein, I've long wondered if it might be appropriate for extremely notable and/or prolific artists to have standalone "List of solo exhibitions by..." articles. I think there's a case to be made that modern/contemporary artists at a certain level of notability/sheer artistic output might deserve standalone exhibition list articles.

Relatedly, I think there are some widely held beliefs among select editors that make these kinds of discussions difficult. For example, I don't believe it's "promotion" to note what gallery represents an artist, especially if it's been covered extensively by reliable sources (as is often the case for high profile artists/galleries). There seems to be a long history of commercial galleries attempting to add information about their artists to Wikipedia which has led to somewhat of a kneejerk reaction by some visual arts editors to view any information about galleries/gallery representation as promotional. That can make these conversations become very black-and-white, where information is automatically categorized as wholly promotional or not, when in reality it's much more nuanced.

Obvi I have lots of thoughts so please do feel free to tag me in if you'd like to continue this discussion! Apologies again for what is now a wall of text, rip. 19h00s (talk) 02:57, 13 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Hi User:19h00s, User:TonyTheTiger, User:Sionk and anyone else interested in discussing best practices for articles about exhibitions, as well as exhibition lists on artist pages. I'm trying to think of a good venue/forum to hold a community discussion over Zoom, Jitsi, or some similar platform about this topic. Any ideas? There are several conferences coming up, but we may have missed the deadlines. Possibly I could post about this on the not-so-used GLAM-Wiki mailing list and see where the discussion goes there first. Many many thoughts! I think evaluating what is considered a "notable" group show is extremely hard, when many galleries are widely known, with many group shows being important, and group shows are a major way young artists build careers and become known - it's not just solo shows that show notability, and many group shows are important but fall out of the biennial circuit. Hexatekin (talk) 14:58, 13 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I definitely don't disagree on the importance of non-Biennial group shows. Thinking back to shows like Primary Structures or something more recent like Soul of a Nation, these thematic exhibitions (at both commercial galleries and nonprofit museums/art spaces) can have a profound impact on the arc of a career. But I think again this gets at the bigger issue: you can only glean the importance of any single group exhibition by studying in depth the arc of an artist's career and examining the published discourse that surrounded (or didn't) their participation. It's not possible to know which group shows were actually notable in the context of their career without building out a broader biographical and career narrative in an article; and an unmediated list of group exhibitions, even if they are notable in all contexts, will not actually provide a reader with any reasonably useful information in a biography. I personally don't see value in adding most group exhibitions to artist biographies as a list, but rather embedded as part of the prose of their biography/career section.

Also courtesy pinging @Netherzone and @Downtowngal who both chimed in when I raised the exhibitions list in biographies question a few years ago. 19h00s (talk) 15:48, 13 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Hi @Hexatekin, thanks for initiating this discussion! A good place to consider might be the GLAM Wiki Global Telegram group, which is a fairly good demographic for this conversation. Pinging @Jane023 and @Pharos who I recall having worked on modeling exhibitions in the past. Also, I would welcome you to join the meta:WREN calls and have this topic be one of the featured discussions, which is one of the best ways to get higher visibility to a group of knowledgeable folks. We also have the meta:Global GLAM calls on a monthly basis which would be a good venue for this to go beyond the borders of English Wikipedia, and perhaps talk Wikidata. - Fuzheado | Talk 10:08, 23 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for thinking of me but I don't have strong opinions how to model exhibitions on artist pages. I have only worked on exhibitions with catalogs because I want the lender of the work for provenance and also because it's too difficult to track down the works without the metadata available in a published catalog. Sadly most modern art exhibitions over time are undocumented besides newspaper reviews, probably because the cost of publishing a catalog (at best often just a list of titles by artist) is too expensive. Lots of information is probably also buried in archives that haven't been digitized (yet). I would generally agree that only exhibitions should be included on Wikipedia pages that are specifically relevant to the artist. Jane (talk) 15:32, 23 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The article Leonid Isaakovich Vail has been proposed for deletion because of the following concern:

Tagged as Unreferenced for 8 years. No other language has an article from which to translate. No hits on Google Books. Appears to be original research.

While all constructive contributions to Wikipedia are appreciated, pages may be deleted for any of several reasons.

You may prevent the proposed deletion by removing the {{proposed deletion/dated}} notice, but please explain why in your edit summary or on the article's talk page.

Please consider improving the page to address the issues raised. Removing {{proposed deletion/dated}} will stop the proposed deletion process, but other deletion processes exist. In particular, the speedy deletion process can result in deletion without discussion, and articles for deletion allows discussion to reach consensus for deletion. Bearian (talk) 21:17, 13 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I woke up this morning and saw a whole bunch of content removal edits at Boating Party by an experienced editor. Can others take a look at those removal edits. P.S. it is currently scheduled to be on the main page in 8 days.--TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 17:40, 17 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Hey Tony! It seems that @AirshipJungleman29 removed several pieces of original research as well as information unrelated to the painting in question. I don't see any big problems with their edits, but it might be useful to chat with AJ29 to get a sense of what the specific issues were that they wanted to address. 19h00s (talk) 19:41, 17 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Yes 19h00s, thanks for reading my edit summaries which explain my logic well. Any further questions Tony? Thanks, ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 20:31, 17 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

User:AirshipJungleman29, I have posted my specific questions on the article talk.-TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 04:26, 18 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

• We are going to have the picture slot at DYK for this in less than 8 days. Should the link Impressionism appear in the WP:LEAD paragraph? Please weigh in on the article talk (in the User:Viriditas section not the AJ29 section) if you have an opinion.-TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 04:32, 18 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Hoping more editors might be able to weigh in here:

• Talk:United_States_Capitol_art#Merge_proposal

Thanks! ---Another Believer _(Talk) 18:39, 17 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Hello, I believe the article on the sculpture Saint Cecilia (Stefano Maderno) has been expanded beyond Start-class. It now contains multiple sections, reliable sources, and more comprehensive coverage of the subject. I suggest reassessing it as B-class (or higher, if appropriate). Gavingaebe (talk) 16:54, 20 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

It seems to me that WP:ARTS is a parent of WP:WPVA. It seems that merely adding the {{WikiProject Visual arts}} gets some articles monitored by both projects and some only VA. I am unable to see why an article might be on Wikipedia:WikiProject Visual arts/Article alerts and not Wikipedia:WikiProject Arts/Article alerts or vice versa.-TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 02:32, 21 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

WP:ARTS has been dead for years, and should just be closed down. Look at the tumbleweed on the talk-page. It's scope was always far too wide. Johnbod (talk) 12:32, 21 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I'm rather confused on the dimensions of Klimt's Schloss by the Water and would appreciate if anyone could help. The National Gallery Prague, in which the painting is exhibited, gives it as 110 x 100 cm.^[1] However many other sources list it as 110 x 110 cm (^[2][3][4][5] etc.). I would consider the museum measurements the most authoritative however the inability to find this anywhere else has led me to question this (also the almost perfectly square images on commons [5]). I've noted this discrepancy within the article (diff) but would appreciate any clarification on whether to prefer one sizing over another. Thanks. Golem08 (talk) 18:24, 23 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The Klimt Foundation database also goes by 110 x 100 cm. [6] Golem08 (talk) 18:30, 23 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Golem08 It's quite common to see these kinds of discrepancies between museum collection databases and published literature; I also see it a lot between museums and commercial galleries. Usually the discrepancy comes because previous dimension measurements were not completely accurate or precise enough and a new measurement was made (either by a museum or for a publication). Sometimes the work in question has literally changed dimensions as canvases and stretcher bars can warp, shrink, or expand, or the work was possibly re-stretched/re-framed, but more often it's just a case of a more precise measurement at a later time. I usually go with the most recent measurement, which, in the case of works in public collections, is usually the dimensions listed by the museum, as they were the most recent party to measure the work when they acquired it. But I also sometimes note these discrepancies or at least acknowledge them, as I did in the introduction to List of works by Sam Gilliam. 19h00s (talk) 19:10, 23 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

See also Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style/Visual_arts#Measurements - there are actually different things to measure: sight in frame, painted area, and canvas. A 10 cm discrepancy is big though, probably a typo by somebody. Johnbod (talk) 00:59, 24 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you. It makes sense to use the most recent measurement. However since it's a large difference and the image in their online collections is perfectly square, it makes me lean towards it being a typo. I've contacted them for clarification. Golem08 (talk) 13:27, 24 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I am trying to make sure I am understanding my sources for a bio I am working on. Would figurative and abstract art be considered opposites.-TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 03:18, 27 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Generally yes. There's obviously nuance to that statement, but on the whole that's considered the case. 19h00s (talk) 17:57, 27 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

In the details section, I present one source that claims this is a "1976 work composed in ink, pencil, colored pencil, and watercolor on paper" and another that says it is a "1975 wax crayon and graphite on paper composition". How should I adjust the infobox?-TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 03:56, 30 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I welcome any opinions on this:

Talk:Cliffs_at_Étretat#Merge_proposal

Thank you! Owunsch (talk) 16:18, 3 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Hello all. Joan arden murray, a true and noted scholar herself, brought up an interesting point when I asked her for assistance on a navbox. Should art historians and scholars known for their work about an individual artist be included on that artist's navbox? Although listed on navboxes in some other fields of endeavor, I don't recall regular use on artist navboxes but maybe they should be added. Thanks. Randy Kryn (talk) 12:09, 4 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Generally I'd say no. One can imagine how this could get out of control with Michelangelo, Rembrandt etc. And what is the infobox user really supposed to do with the information, other than a rather deceptive name-drop in their student assignment? There may well be more obscure cases where a mention of one or two scholars is justifiable in the lead, but that's enough imo. Johnbod (talk) 15:51, 4 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Agree with Johnbod, it doesn't really add much to the article or provide much for the reader that wouldn't already be in the body with more context. For example, in the Sam Gilliam article, the scholar that would fit the bill for this would be Jonathan P. Binstock; but because Binstock is extensively cited in the body (given that he's the most widely cited Gilliam scholar generally), the article already introduces him and notes his contributions to the historical record. That feels like the more appropriate way to handle this if a specific scholar or small group of scholars have studied/published on a single artist deeply enough to warrant mention. 19h00s (talk) 22:20, 4 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Apologies Randy, I mis-read your note as being about infoboxes. I think navboxes are a different story than infoboxes, and I'm actually more inclined to say that this would be an appropriate addition to individual artist navboxes. Although for the vast majority of cases, there would likely be a small number, or even just one scholar that would fit the definition of "Noted scholars" or something similar, so I'm not sure it's something that should be widespread. But I can certainly imagine situations where it does make sense to link to several authors/scholars well known for their study of or connection to an artist. 19h00s (talk) 22:27, 4 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]