Case Study

A regional gallery has commissioned an iteration of a site-specific artwork by an art collective that the gallery curator had seen at a biennale one year earlier. They meet for an initial consultation to better understand the process of conceptualising each version of the artwork and how it might be produced, including how material elements in the work can be fabricated and recycled at the conclusion of the work’s presentation. 

The gallery has a set artist fee that includes superannuation and allowances for administration time, plus a Pay The Rent contribution, as well as a separate production fee, but since the gallery has never commissioned work by a collective before, the artist fee split among each contributor is too low to make it viable. 

The gallery agrees to source additional grant funding to commission the work in order to pay fair artist fees to the collective, and the art collective provides text, images and guidance on the budget in order to justify the grant request. 

Upon being successful in their grant, the gallery and artist collective can now build and implement a fair plan for development and delivery of this site-specific artwork.