Scarcroft Road / Bishopthorpe Road Junction, York:
Public art commission £7300

Artist Brief:
City of York Council is seeking to commission an artist to design and deliver permanent site specific art work/s to improve the visual appearance and public use of the grassed area at the junction of Scarcroft Rd / Bishopthorpe Rd, York.
The works will form a new landmark, reflecting the area and engendering a sense of place and pride locally.
The artist will work with local communities, engaging people in the design process to ensure the work is accessible and appropriate.

1st April 12.00pm: Deadline for expressions of interest
3rd April: shortlisting artists
20th April 3.30 – 5.30: On site consultation including shortlisted artists
18th May: Confirmation of contract
Oct 2009: Completion of work

If you would like to be considered for this commission please submit:
• Up to two A3 sheets showing examples of your previous work as relevant to this project.
A disc with up to 5 images of your previous work + 100 words briefly describing your work and how you would approach this commission. (The above information from short-listed artists will be shown to community groups for comments.)
• Two references or testimonials from previous work
• Your CV and artist’s statement.
To Emily Harvey, Arts and Culture, City of York Council, Mill House, North St, York YO1 6JD.
Email: Emily.Harvey@york.gov.uk or Kristina.Davey@york.gov.uk

Background information
Micklegate Ward Committee wishes to improve the appearance of the grassed area of land at the junction of Scarcroft Road and Bishopthorpe Road, adjacent to the perimeter of Bishopthorpe Road Car Park.
This is a prominent public space, with a high footfall, where people gather and meet. The final scheme will include consideration of seating, safety and maintenance and will be effective all year round both in daylight and after dark.
Local community groups will be involved in the initial selection of an artist to deliver these improvements.
A steering group including local councillors, CYC officers and community representatives will oversee the project.

The role of the artist
The artist will be committed to engaging local groups such as schools and residents associations through workshops and/or demonstrations, and be able to reflect this involvement within the production of their own work. A timetable of community contact time will be negotiated between the artist and the steering group.
The artist will be expected to work up designs and models for comment by the steering group and relevant CYC officers. The artist will work with the steering group to seek the relevant approvals and ensure the scheme is appropriate and deliverable. Evidence of current CRB clearance, public liability insurance and self-employed status will be required.
The artist will have access to their own work base, tools and equipment.

The fixed fee of £7300 includes
• Research and design of the scheme.
• All materials
• Attendance at agreed planning meetings, and liaison with project partners.
• Co-ordination and delivery of community activities relating to the design process.
• Fabrication and installation of work.
The artist will be contracted with the City of York Council through Arts Action York.

Plan of site:
Photographs of the site:




Additional information and constraints:
• The site is at the junction of Scarcroft Road and Bishopthorpe Road, adjacent to two busy roads.
• The site is just outside a conservation area.
• The space to used includes the two main green areas and seating indicated on the plan.
• Trees are valuable, particularly a mature lime tree, the root system of which is likely to spread over most of the open space there. Consultation with specific CYC departments will need to be undertaken before any ground works are planned.
• A pyracantha hedge will be planted along the wall running from the hairdressers round to the car park.
• There is electricity to the site.
• Water, mains cables, gas, signal cables run underneath the footpaths, which must remain in place.
• There are no height restrictions for the site, although the trees may well restrict the height of any installations. Final proposals must be agreed with CYC officers.
• The view of the road junction should not be impeded in any way.

Chiho Aoshim.

ok now this is the most amazeing thing ever!! Well ok (maybe not..) but i think so!! well this is outside the white cube'ish'.. as its in a tube station... so yes ive shared a wonderfull artist with you all!

andy abbott- anecdote vendor

i know we all know this one already, or at least those of us in word based art last semester, but i've talked to andy quite a bit about this piece since then, and i thought it was really interesting that after displaying it in an exhibition space, it was put in a pub for a while, and actually worked a lot better there. for those of you who missed this lecture, it kind of acts like a normal vendor, only instead of putting in money, you have to write your own anecdote and put it in a capsule and drop it into one of the tubes, and in exchange for it you get someone elses story. so anyway, apparently the anecdotes left in the pub-exhibition were all more genuine and interesting than the first exhibition, which were a bit contrived. but apart from that, it turned out that in the pub, this machine sparked off all these really interesting conversations, so really the art ended up being the vendor as a facilitator of these random interactions between people, rather than the machine as an object. i'm really liking the idea of the conversation or interaction as art in themselves rather than art-objects.

(Anecdote Vendor, 2005, a pub somewhere in leeds)

Jeremy Deller

The Battle Of Orgreave (2001)

Here's where I regurgitate what I learned from my Intertextuality essay.

Deller's work rarely (if ever) goes in galleries. Documentation does, but not the work itself (like much of Richard Long's work, Sarah!). A lot of his work is so collaborative that his collaboration makes up most of the work, and it is often temporary/performative so it defies exhibition. The Battle of Orgreave is a good example - a massive re-enactment of one of the most violent clashes between miners and police in the 1984/5 miners' strike. It's actually easy to miss that he's an artist at all, and his work still stands up if you forget that it's art.

ESSAY QUOTE!

For Deller, the ‘art’ side of his work takes a back seat to his sense of social responsibility. Or to look at it another way, the art is so closely entwined with the social or political in his work that if you negate the art it doesn’t leave a gaping hole in your experience or interpretation. The participants in Orgreave didn’t need it to be an art event for it to be significant, although as Deller states, it wouldn’t have happened without him [he says that being an artist puts you in an interesting position where you get to do things that wouldn't happen normally]. It takes little effort to conceive of any of Deller’s works removed from the art sphere and for them to retain all credibility as socially involved, dialogical, if sometimes a little wacky, public endeavours.

So I reckon Deller's work is so far outside the white cube (as a concept) that it's only just art. Or you could argue that it's more like art than any other gallerised stuff. It's definitely constructive, which I fucking love.

ben wilson

i'm posting these on behalf of me and lucy, because we both really really like this guy (feel free to add more chewing gum examples though lucy!!) he works in london and has been doing this for quite a while...no specific place, although a few years ago his plan was to start at the top end of High Street in Barnet and work his way to the centre of london. he does all kinds of paintings on the gum, including animals, flowers, faces, cups of tea, and does quite a few special requests or 'in memory of' pieces. and strawberries :] i like it that its so small and almost unnoticable but reallyreally cool at the same time.

isaiah zagar

i know i've talked about this guy before, but i just love his work so much. he does these murals all over philadelphia, but this is his magic garden (1020 south st, philadelphia) (i think made round 1995) thats kind of like his centre piece. i love this kind of art, that has such a positive influence on its environment, using mostly just junk as materials. and actually doing something, making something. i want to make things. like martin creed :] only probably not actually like his work.

alexander brodsky

these are some pictures of his Canal Street Subway Project (1996, Canal Street, New York), where he used a length of tunnel of the underground in new york to make this venetian-like boat scene (while the tunnel was undergoing renovation). he made these little boats and silhouette figures out of tin and wood and aluminium and floated them down the disused rails in a pool of water, so people using the underground had this slightly eery-but-atmospheric (slightly nostalgic?) scene to distract them from their everyday regular subway journey.