Commissions
Cultural Services endeavours to commission innovative public art works that are of the highest quality, are relevant to their prospective community and context, and enrich the urban experience of Toronto’s residents and visitors. The City of Toronto aims to carry out this ambition through equitable and objective selection processes with valuable input from community members and guidance from relevant professionals.
Cultural Services’ commissions are awarded through a competitive process. Competitions are adjudicated by a qualified independent selection panel with professional expertise in contemporary art and knowledge of the local context.
Artist Selection Processes
The process by which an artist is selected for a commission has a significant impact on its development and use of the appropriate process has a continuing influence on the project’s success beyond its completion.
The City of Toronto operates competitions as its primary form of artist selection process. Depending on requirements specific to the project, the competition may be open, limited or invitational:
- Open – an open competition is most frequently practiced by Toronto. The competition is a widely publicized call for artists to submit entries; this is the process most favoured by the City of Toronto and adhered to whenever project budget and timeframe allow.
- Limited – limited competitions may be staged when a project requires a specific art form, or there are pressing time restrictions on its completion. In this instance a smaller number of artists are invited to submit their qualifications and project proposals.
- Invitational – invitational competitions are when the commissioning body invites an artist to submit a proposal to be judged by the selection panel. The City of Toronto rarely employs this form of competition.
The form of competition to be used for a particular project is determined by City staff in consultation with the Art Committee for Public Places and the art consultant, should there be one contracted for the project. Members of the Art Committee for Public Places do not participate directly in the artist selection process for any commission.
Selection Panels
An independent selection panel is convened for each public art commission under the City of Toronto’s jurisdiction.
These selection panels select short-listed and winning artists, measuring the artist’s proposal and past work against the general goals of the City’s Public Art Policy and the specific objectives of the project at hand.
Qualified selection panels are chosen comprising a majority of recognised visual arts professionals as well as representatives of the community with interests in the site. These selection panels select short-listed and winning artists for public art projects for properties under the City of Toronto’s jurisdiction.
The selection panel has a composition according to City Policy of two community members and three arts professionals. For every project, the City and Art Consultant, if applicable, strive to ensure that one of the art professionals is also a member of the local community.
Selection panel members recognised as visual arts professionals may include artists, curators, art educators, visual art administrators, art historians, architects and landscape architects. Art dealers are not allowed to participate on selection panels.
Members of the Art Committee for Public Places are not allowed to sit on any selection panels or juries during their tenure on the Committee.