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New Guide Showcases Artwork On Display Around Chicago

CHICAGO (CBS) -- A new guide to hundreds of works of art in Chicago is as close as your web browser.

Journalist Christine Badowski and art professor Wendy Koenig worked for months to compile an exhaustive list of more than 250 sculptures, murals and other works of art on display around the city.

Koenig says she came up with the guide while teaching a class on art and architecture in Chicago.

"There are a number of wonderful architectural guides that I can use for my class, but there wasn't a single guide to the public art," she said. "So it seemed like something I could do for the benefit of my class ... and we decided as we finished the project, why not put it on the Web?"

New Guide Showcases Artwork On Display Around Chicago

The site includes location, artist and historical information for each sculpture and mural, from well-known pieces like "Cloud Gate" (which you know as "the Bean") to more obscure pieces, including the one Koenig notes is her favorite: the "Fountain of Time" along the Midway Plaisance near the University of Chicago in Hyde Park.

It's easily-sized for mobile devices, which Badowski says is a response to how many people look at art now.

"They have their smartphones, they have devices that they want to just instantly find things and this is one way to sort of accommodate that," she says.

And yes, there may soon be an app for that.

The websites can be found at: windycitypublicart.com and chicagopublicart.blogspot.com.

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