ARTISTS TALKING

Artists have been commissioned to make work for individual clients, organisations and venues for centuries. Now, in the twenty-first century, there is a wide scope of commission opportunities for artists who work in a variety of media and who are at all stages of their careers.

Artworks can be commissioned in a range of different ways and by many different organisations. You can use the resources on this site to identify where your practice fits into the broad range of options in the UK.

By highlighting some of the organisations that support production of new artwork through commission opportunities, we show the various outcomes possible within permanent and temporary commissions including works that are functional, site-specific, time-based and digital, research and process-based, along with examples of interactive and collaborative art.

In addition to work commissioned to a specific brief, research and process-based commissions are often offered by arts organisations and galleries.

These allow artists to set their own parameters for a period of investigation into a particular area of interest. The results may include everything from, paper and internet publications to installations or performances.

Agencies

A number of specialist agencies have grown up over the last twenty years for whom commissioning public art is a key function. Examples include Public Art South West, Commissions East, Cywaith Cymru:Artworks Wales and Artpoint.

One of Artpoint's recent projects brought together five artists to work on integrated artworks for Norden Farm Centre, Maidenhead. Julia Manheim as lead artist was empowered to develop the brief for input by other artists, as well as to identify possible strategies for collaboration with the design team.

Artists Lisa Gough Daniels, Hans Peter Kuhn, Anna Heinrich and Leon Palmer came in once the initial research had been completed. They combined workshops with the design team, together with their own responses and on-site discussions to produce integrated artworks.

These included a permanent sound and video installation by four of the artists entitled Deep Theatre, as well as more architecturally inspired interventions such as Lisa Gough Daniels' Curved landscape in the courtyard.

Local authorities

As a result of extensive campaigns and awareness-raising in the 90s by the Arts Council of England (amongst others), many more local authorities began to commission public art within urban regeneration and cultural development programmes.

Amongst those local authorities with a track-record for active public art programmes are Swansea, Southampton, Bristol and Barrow in Furness. The role of a public arts officer in such situations is to win support and resourcing for a public art strategy and to manage or enable projects in a variety of sites throughout the urban environment including public spaces, schools, theatres and shopping centres.

Curatorial commissions

Clearly though, the traditional boundaries between public art commissioning and curating are increasingly blurred. Independent organisations such as Artangel in London and Locus+ in Newcastle have gained a substantial track record for their work with established artists on ambitious and large-scale works that may take several years to realise.

In this way, there is an interface with the commissioning processes adopted by Littoral, an organisation that concentrates on involving artists in collaborative projects, generated in response to social and environmental issues. The aim is to bring a range of creative and critical strategies to bear on the complexities of real-life problems, and combat the effects of social exclusion in urban and rural communities.

Collaboration

An area that has burgeoned over the last five years in particular has been collaboration between artists and architects within the commissioning process.

The RSA's Art for Architecture scheme supports collaboration between artists and architects and promotes equal status for both parties within a design team. However, although it offers grants to artist-architect teams, and funds lectures and publications on issues surrounding collaboration, it doesn't act as a match-maker for such partnerships, nor fund production of work.

RSA Director Jes Fernie has said that: "A successful collaboration often involves artists and architects asking unnerving questions of each other, challenging the foundation of their knowledge".

Artists' initiatives

Collaboration works best when the relationship is founded on a generosity of spirit between the partners, sound critical discourse and a mutually-held enthusiasm for negotiating the terms and detail of the collaboration.

Just as they proactively instigate exhibitions, installations and residencies, artists can, and do, initiate their own commissions and seek out partners in their realisation.

A growing number of organisations seek to support and enable such artist-led ventures, facilitating the practical realisation of an artist-led project including doing the job of raising the funds. Amongst these is Grizedale Arts in Cumbria. The aim of its commissions and residency schemes is to support fresh ideas and new modes of engagement. As the artists' projects are viewed as a continuum rather than a series of one-off events, the organisation adopts a curatorial approach to the selection of the artists, in order to produce a coherent programme.

Talking about her time at Grizedale, Jo Roberts said: "The highs were the freedom to do the work, meet other artists there and to work with great staff. It was hard work and difficult at times. But all in all it was a profound and unique experience".

Although historically a 'sculpture park' with permanently-sited works along a forest trail, artists who create new work at Grizedale nowadays are working in a wide range of media including site-specific installation, performance, text based work, audio, film and new media. Amongst those involved in projects over recent years have been Graham Fagen, Adam Chodzko and Louise K Wilson.