Hundreds of great works of art are gathering dust in the backrooms of public buildings. Now, writes Dan Carrier, comes a scheme to catalogue them all

THEY gather dust in storerooms. They sit on lonely corridors, ignored by the workers who shuffle past. They grace offices and are so much part of the furniture the staff think of them as part of the wallpaper.
Public buildings across the country have a stock of art works to grace their walls – and it is not just places such as government ministries, universities and hospitals that own work. Places such as fire and police stations also have them squirreled away – and hidden in a number of back rooms are long-forgotten works by greatest names in British art.
Now the Slade School of Art – based at University College London in Gower Street – has published a catalogue of the works they own.

The huge sculpture on Parliament Hill called The Writer is the work of artist Giancarlo Neri. He tells Dan Carrier of his regular struggles with bureaucracy when he plans his giant works of art

THE nuts and bolts have been screwed into place. Like a giant piece of flat pack furniture, a table and chair has been assembled on the rolling slopes of Parliament Hill by a team of engineers directed by Italian artist Giancarlo Neri.
It towers skywards and makes dog walkers look Lilliputian in size.
Neri, 50, has planned this moment for four years.
And as soon as the Neopolitan walked to the top of Parliament Hill and gazed down across to the Highgate wildfowl pond, he knew he had found the perfect spot for The Writer.