Commissioning or purchasing art is not like buying a curtain wall or importing an eye-catching tile for a lobby floor. You are buying a concept and adding another creative player to your project team. You are also investing in an object that will have a life both separate from and tied to the life of your building. All in all, no small undertaking. If you decide to commission art for your project, you will want to think about the following things.

Finding the Right Artist for Your Project

The Seattle Art Museum’s Olympic Sculpture Park notwithstanding, there is an observable regional bias in the selection of artists for publicly sited projects in the Pacific Northwest. (Feel free to substitute the names of most U.S. geographic regions and smaller cities for “Pacific Northwest.“ Large cities like New York and LA tend to be more cosmopolitan because they have the requisite money and workforce.) This regionalism is enforced by the agencies that organize and fund public (read: permanent, large) work: state, county and municipal offices with mandates to promote local arts and heritage. Contributing equally to this situation is the tacit assumption by many funders and collectors that an artist who has successfully created one or two big, public-friendly artworks is ideally positioned to produce more of the same.

Dedicated local support is essential to the careers of most emerging and mid-career artists. This does not excuse myopic art-making and funding practices, however—if you commission something that people have already seen before, they sometimes literally will not see it.

If you can, invest some time and money in soliciting and reviewing proposals; an independent art consultant will coordinate this for you. For a potentially more intriguing result, you can also ask individuals that are a step or two outside the art market system to recommend projects they have seen and liked. (I’m thinking of art critics, contemporary art professors, other artists.) Ideally, you will pay at least three artists a proposal fee and fly them in to present in person.

Working with Artists

Artists do not have national associations or codes of conduct. There are no best practices, just good manners.

Architecture programs offer training in materials, building codes and professional practice. Studio Art programs, on the other hand, offer an intensely personal creative experience, with an at best perfunctory overview of professional practices. Artists typically have experience with only those materials you can successfully manipulate in a hands-on, studio environment. As art programs become more sophisticated, access to materials and technologies grows, but the bricks and mortar type materials that start coming into play with large projects remain, for the most part, out of scope. Art students are also often free to work on a project until the moment it is due, to make drastic changes at whim and repeatedly. They can pull all-nighters; your construction team won’t.

Remember, too, that one need not go to school to be an artist. Although MFAs are fast becoming the industry standard, they are not a requirement. Many successful artists have no formal art or business training. As with any group of self-made professionals, quirks abound.

Architects can easily imagine some of the other factors that motivate an artist's behavior. Whenever you place a large, attention-grabbing object in public—a large, attention-grabbing object with your name on it—you will want to control as much of the production and display of that object as possible. And because of the reasons outlined above, artists are not always equipped to effectively share or relinquish control.

Anticipate a strong personality, someone who will notice little flaws in the prep work you’ve done, someone who may want to change things mid-process. When you can, consider these mid-process requests; they may very well lead to a better, more remarkable end result. The creative process is rarely streamline-able.

Project Management

Most architecture-scale works require engineering or site modification. Make decisions about artwork at the beginning of your project and work with the artist to determine how you need to prepare the space. Site prep often requires cosmetic or structural changes to the building: selecting new paint colors, moving electrical outlets, even adjusting the shape or placement of a ceiling or wall. In almost all instances, addressing these things at the beginning of a project is cheaper and easier than retrofitting a space to accommodate artwork.

If you are doing much more than nailing a standard picture hook into the wall, you need a project manager to coordinate the interests and activities of a group comprising any assortment and number of the following: clients, artists, studio staff, architects, contractors, subs, fabricators and specialists, shippers, etc. Your general contractor, no matter how excellent, is very probably not the best person for the job. If the artist you are working with has studio staff, someone from that staff will either act as a manager or support the artist’s efforts to this end. Know your primary contact. Any contractors you are working with, as well as the building owners or developers, must also know this primary contact. Establish periodic meetings early on, as well as a system for collectively addressing new ideas and concerns.

The wife of a project funder once called me midway through her day—I’m at the nail parlor!—to issue some directives on the project that then took me two days to clarify and sort out. The chain of command is typically client-architect-artist. Unless you are all sitting around the same table, keep the conversation moving along this path.

The Muscle

Most of the time, artists or their trusted staff/contractors are going to do the best job making and installing the work you've commissioned. Highly specialized installers typically do not cost more than well-paid construction staff, and while most general contractors have the manpower and skills to fabricate and/or install large objects in large spaces, they don’t always have the obsessive attention to detail an artist and her staff will. (Or if they do, it might not be in regard to the details of interest to the artist, or you.) If artwork is sloppy around the edges or the craftsmanship is uneven, it is going to show.

Professional art handlers are also an excellent resource. You will find art handling companies and individuals in most urban centers, and they’ll typically travel a few hundred miles or more outside city limits for a gig. Members of this professional class (former art students, emerging artists, other artists) know how to handle highvalue objects and, typically, offer a good range of carpentry, rigging, electrical and other skills.

If your construction site is union, have a conversation early on about who will be responsible for what activities. This can be particularly difficult to navigate in situations where the artwork is a fairly common structural element like an electrical fixture or a piece of architectural glass. You and the artist will need to make the case for the artwork being outside the scope of the union contract. (I once managed a project where our installers were allowed on site as “advisors“ to the construction team. For this to happen, they had to agree to a strict hands-off policy that everyone immediately and gladly ignored.)

Avoiding Disputes

Artists are frequently guilty of agreeing to an unrealistic budget in order to realize a project. They will forgo any actual income, re-allocating the “artists fee“ portion of the budget to material or service costs. They will also spend their own money to complete a project. And despite, or rather, as an obvious condition of this complex juggling of funds, the money will sometimes run out. Require detailed budgets from artists and review any material and service lines that relate to construction, fabrication, and any other areas in which you have some expertise.

Finally, plan for the future. Consider upkeep (cleaning, fixing abrasions, replacing mechanical parts), and try to absorb that into your or the building owner/operator’s budget. Even very successful artists cannot afford this kind of routine maintenance. Also get a plan in place for what will happen to the artwork if the building is ever raised or renovated, scenarios that can be pretty far from your mind during the construction process.