(Above) The Artists Monument by Tony Tasset. (Click on image to view larger version.)

February 18, 2016 – Artists everywhere will be honored Saturday in Grant Park as an 80-foot-long “Artists Monument” is unveiled.

Created in 2014 by Chicago artist Tony Tasset, the 8 x 8 x 80 artwork is etched with the names of 392,485 artists, from Pablo Picasso and Andy Warhol to emerging artists.

“This celebratory piece is a love letter to artists, honoring those that are well-known and the vast majority that virtually no one has ever heard of,” says Tasset, a professor of art history at UIC. “I know an artist who has only been in one group exhibition 15 years ago at a university gallery and he’s on the list.”

Names are carved, in alphabetical order, into colorful acrylic panels on two shipping containers.

The unveiling is at 3 p.m. in the southwest corner of Grant Park near Michigan Avenue and Ninth Street. According to Tasset, the monument will be “up for an indefinite amount of time”