Public Art Commissions...are they viable?

CREDIT: Amanda Moore (public art workshop)

I’ve been applying to do public art commissions for at least ten years now. These have included temporary installations, permanent sculptures and graphical murals. Most have been commissioned by local authorities using funds from central government or monies levied from developers in relation to new housing. These are a great opportunity for artists to work outside of the gallery space and be paid to produce new work. They also offer the public access to conceptual art outside of the traditional gallery space.

I usually find these opportunities on artist sites such as Artists Newsletter, ArtQuest, Royal Society of Sculptors and Instagram. They are often open call and ask for information about previous work and examples, and then an initial idea of how you would approach the commission. Usually there is a shortlisting stage where the client pays around £500 for an initial concept and interview. 

Art commissions have formed at least 25% of my yearly income over the last decade with the rest coming from other freelance or PAYE work. However, I have noticed some shifts over this time and not for the better…

Budget:

Commission budgets are often now very unrealistic. I’m currently working on one commission for a permanent sculpture with an £8k budget. This includes my artist fee, engineering input and a design safety check. At least installation is by the council and they are procuring items incurring tax so that the budget isn’t taken by VAT. With all fees and expenses, this has left me with a design fee of about £2k to include site meetings and travel costs. On other projects there seems to be no cap on endless meetings and public consultation workshops or additional fee for these.

Application Process:

The shortlisting fee seems to be vanishing. The project briefing often requires an initial concept design as part of the process. The right thing to do is to shortlist artists based on past work examples. Then pay a few of them a fee to do an initial concept to determine which one to choose. The client could then incorporate some of the initial comment seven for unchosen projects as they have paid for them.

Programme:

Programming on my recent projects often drifts on without any additional fee. The projects often require sign off on concept designs by a stakeholder group. Unless this group is small and decisive, artists can end up making endless changes to designs.

Responsibility:

Artist contracts are now looking to sit back to back with building contracts. Artists need to read contracts very carefully as their responsibility is being increased. This often includes being responsible for coordination with consultants like engineers and health and safety and making sure contractors installing artwork have all pre-construction information they need. This could include below ground services surveys and could eat a lot of the project budget and require most specialised input than an artist can likely offer.

Terms surrounding Principle Designer roles, Construction Design Management role all have significant responsibilities in terms of safety and could carry statutory consequences. I’m not even sure that artist insurance covers these responsibilities. I’ve even had a contract which includes Limited and Ascertained Damages for lateness of almost £1k per month when there wasn't really any significant loss to the client financially.

What’s the answer…?

I’m now having to think very carefully about which commissions I apply for. Those are the ones with a decent budget and the least amount of risk pushed over to the artist. Many of these clients are large councils with the ability to provide engineering resources, directly procure fabricators to recoup tax and bear more risk than a single artist can. I’m also pushing back on these more risky risk clauses around health and safety. Artists should explicitly mention how many site visits or workshops are included with the additional ones being offered at £x per day plus travel.

If commissions keep going this way it could be that the only people able to apply for them are experienced fabricators and the quality of the ideas may suffer as artists are pushed further outside of this public art space.