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You may be interested in highlighting the difficulties and obstacles faced by emerging artists in trying to gain commissions in Public Art.

Difficulties and obstacles
1. A newcomer to Public Art may be talented and have a good portfolio, but when applying for Public Art is not able to list or show an existing work of art in the public domain.
2. The chances of being selected or short listed for a Public Art commission without previous public art work are significantly reduced when established Public Artists have applied. Most selection procedures will quite naturally end up choosing the "safe" option, i.e. the artist with proven public art work in their portfolio.
3. Vicious circle - it is clear that it requires not only endless energy and determination by the emerging artist, but also valuable time away from producing, before they can expect a breakthrough.

Alternatives
What alternatives or options could make the difference?
1. Those bodies involved in Public Art, be it local authorities, re-generation companies or culture & art organisations should create a scheme whereby emerging artists without work in the public domain are given an opportunity on merit to participate in a Public Art commission either in their own right or perhaps even better as part of a collaborative commission.
That would enable the emerging artist to refer to an actual public art work and, in the case of a collaborative project, gain valuable experience from an established public artist and improve their network of contacts.
2. National Ideas box
Businesses often have an Ideas box. Why can there not be a National Public Art Ideas box allowing local people to put forward ideas for Public Art. If the idea is posted to an independent body they can, without bias, share the idea with the appropriate local authority or even involve other parties such as Art Charities or National Lottery funds, etc.
3. Facilitating Public Art
There are Charitable organisations prepared to make small cash grants to public artists for Public Art, but there is no sharing or collating of this information. I know a case where funds where available, but before a scheme could be agreed with a local authority the deadline of application imposed by the Charity was reached and an opportunity was lost both for the artist and local community.
4. Make it easier
Those artists working in Public Art require Insurance indemnities for Public Liability, Professional liability and sometimes CRB Checks and in my opinion the commissioning bodies should offer to assist the artist with these tasks and enable them to get the best policies matching their requirements. I am certain that many young emerging artists will have given up in the end because survival and earning a living is what is uppermost in their minds.

Collectively, a lot more could be done to make it easier for this category of artists and to bring benefits to them and society at large.

Eddy Lagrand
4 April 2008

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How do other artists feel about unpaid public art competitions?

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We are self-employed sculptors with wide experience making artworks for the public realm. It appears to us that there is an increasing trend in the artist selection process for medium to large budget public art commissions to be decided through unpaid general competition.

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In using this competitive process, there is possibly an assumption by the client, that it is a quicker route to choosing the best proposal for their site, but we feel, in reality, the opposite is true.

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This competitive process often requires the artist to produce a fully detailed and cost estimated proposal. The artist's initial concept is the most crucial element of a commission and demands careful research and consideration. As such, it is expensive in terms of artists’ time and effort. When a client solicits this effort from many artists, it is a huge waste of creative energy - after all, only one proposal will eventually be commissioned. In fact this 'wide net' approach is counterproductive in a number of ways; selection panels are confronted with a broad range of proposals which may or may not be suitable for the site, inadequately-researched proposals may need extensive redesign (and re-budgeting) to meet the needs of the site, and perhaps most critically, the solicitation of a large number of competing proposals creates a dangerous incentive for artists to ‘over-propose’ in hopes of winning the commission – promising more than the budget or the site may be able to support.

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Most artists working to produce a proposal ‘upfront’, cannot take the time and expense to travel to a site to carry out research. Many of the most talented and busy will simply not apply - or they will put a proposal together that, due to the time/costs constraints, is likely to be less than their best – artists have to make many job applications in a year to gain work, and upfront competitions add greatly to the work load.

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Clients' time is better spent in finding the artists with whom they wish to work, either by interviewing and selecting the candidate in a single round, or by shortlisting a maximum of three artists/teams, who then enter into a period of paid research and design to create their proposal. We know through our own experiences over the years that this approach yields the best artistic results. Our suggestion to art consultants, their clients and anyone involved in commissioning artworks – is to abandon request for proposal competitions and rely on the review of CVs and portfolios of previous projects in selecting artists for public projects. Artists with less experience and therefore little or no track record of completed public projects might still be offered the opportunity to design a proposal to show their potential. Smaller, local projects could be offered on a competitive proposal basis, creating a training ground for young artists interested in pursuing public art.

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Most of the undersigned artists have themselves benefited from these ways of gaining early experience. Mentorship programs, pairing emerging and established artists might also be used to expand the pool of talent upon which selection panels draw.

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To encourage commissioning entities to abandon the unpaid competition could be a simple procedure. In responding to a competition, we are encouraging artists to send their CV and images, along with a letter explaining why the artist is not supplying an upfront proposal. We expect this would demonstrate the calibre of those who would have applied had the commissioning agency chosen to request CV and portfolio instead of a proposal.

We invite comment on these proposals from public art commissioning bodies, as well as practising artists, as our intention is to improve quality, process and fairness for all involved in commissioning.

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What do you think? We think it could work…..

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Diane Gorvin Philip Bews Andrea Myklebust Stanton G Sears

4 April 2008

www.bewsgorvin.co.uk

Artists Concerns Over Unpaid Proposals

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