City of El Paso Public Art Program

The City of El Paso’s Museums and Cultural Affairs Department (MCAD) Public Art Program seeks to establish a new pre-qualified list of emerging and established artist and artist teams working in a variety of visual media and artistic approaches for its 2018–2020 Pre-Qualified Artist List. 

On November 6, 2012 the City of El Paso approved a Street Infrastructure and Quality of Life bond to include 2% for arts. The approved bond projects are a Children’s Museum, Hispanic Cultural Center, Multi-Purpose Sports and Entertainment Facility, Zoo expansion, new parks and recreation centers, Library expansions open space trail systems and streetscape projects.

Overview

The City of El Paso’s Museums and Cultural Affairs Department (MCAD) Public Art Program seeks to establish a new pre-qualified list of emerging and established artist and artist teams working in a variety of visual media and artistic approaches for its 2018 – 2020 Pre-Qualified Artist List. 
nOn November 6, 2012 the City of El Paso approved a Street Infrastructure and Quality of Life bond to include 2% for arts. The approved bond projects are a Children’s Museum, Hispanic Cultural Center, Multi-Purpose Sports and Entertainment Facility, Zoo expansion, new parks and recreation centers, Library expansions open space trail systems and streetscape projects.
PUBLIC ART PROGRAM
El Paso’s Public Art Program gives voice to the city’s creative spirit – shaping El Paso’s visual identity, defining places that anchor the community, and contributing to the city’s evolution as a dynamic urban place. The program seeks to:

• Enhance the quality of life of residents,
• Support creative and professional growth of the arts community,
• Support economic growth,
• Enhance the experience visitors have of El Paso, and
• Promote authentic images of El Paso as a unique place, community and destination.

Pre-qualified Artist List

The City of El Paso Public Art Program Pre-Qualified Artist List is open to receive applications from established as well as emerging artists who are interested in being considered for public art projects. The list is used to streamline the selection process and opens up every two years for artists to submit their information, once submitted an artist will be able to remain on the eligibility list for three years before re-applying. As public art projects arise, artists will be pooled from the list and placed for review and consideration to the project.  The City of El Paso requests qualifications from professional visual artists or artist teams who live in the United States. Artists living within a 100 mile radius of El Paso are strongly encouraged to apply. 
The list will also be made publicly available, for consideration of other projects by private developers, University of Texas at El Paso, Texas Department of Transportation, and other City entities.

Budget

The funds for public art project are derived from the 2% for public art portion of the City of El Paso net proceeds of any revenue bond or certificates of obligation issued for construction projects throughout the City.  The award for an artist contract can range from $20,000 to $500,000, inclusive of community collaboration, design, fabrication, and installation of artwork (including shipping expenses and insurance), travel, and all other project related costs. 

Eligibility Requirements

If interested in applying, Applications must be submitted using the Call for Entry (CAFÉ) online application system managed by the Western States Arts Federation (WESTAF). Artists will be required to create a username and password and set up a personal account, free of charge, at www.callforentry.org. Following successful set up, all interested applicants will be granted full access to our detailed application; simply click on “Apply to Calls” and click on “City of El Paso 2018-2020 Pre-Qualified Artist List”

Submission Requirements

• Letter of Interest: briefly describe your interest and qualifications for this project.
• Current Resume: outline your experience as an artist. Artist teams must submit a resume for each member.
• Six (6) images of completed past artworks. Including: title of work, dimensions, medium, year of completion, a three (3) sentence description, and value or budget amount for works of art for insurance purposes. If applying as a team, only six (6) images can be submitted to CAFÉ.n n
  • Images must be sized to the following dimensions (as required by the CAFÉ online application system)n n
    • Dimensions: 1920 pixels horizontal or vertical, i.e. 1320 x 1920 pixels
    • File Format: Baseline JPEG (do not use progressive JPEG format)
    • Compression: Please size each image to be no more than 1.8 MB in file size. On average, each image will be roughly 1.2 MB. Larger is not necessarily better. JPEG images cannot be saved as progressive JPEG files. Progressive JPEG files will appear on the CAFÉ web site, but will not display properly during the jury process.
    • Media: Internet submissions only
    • File Name: CAFÉ will automatically rename files

Artist Teams: submit images of work that demonstrates a collaborative effort to create an artwork by all members of the team. In the Letter of Interest please state how the team has worked collaboratively in the past and what role each team member played. When applying as a team you are expected to accept a commission as a team throughout the two year term in the artist list. If your team dissolves, individuals will not be considered for commissions and each artist must re-apply individually.
 

Review Criteria

• Meets the definition of Artist, as defined in the Public Art Master Plan and Guidelines “Artist, an individual or collective generally recognized by critics and peers as a professional practitioner of the visual, performing or language arts, based on a body of work, educational background, experience, exhibition history, publication and/or creation of artwork.”
• Demonstrates artistic excellence, innovation and originality as represented in past work and supporting materials.
• Demonstrates capacity for working in media and with concepts that are appropriate to the project goals and site.
• Demonstrates interest and capability in creating public artworks in collaboration with the City, MCAD, the design team (if applicable) and other project partners.
• Demonstrates interest and capability in engaging community representatives in a project.
• Demonstrates the ability to communicate effectively and elicit the ideas of team members; flexibility and problem-solving skills; and ability to work with architectural drawings and construction documents.
• Demonstrates experience in successfully completing works of similar scope, scale, budget and complexity, or articulates how he or she would be able to bring the necessary artistic and technical skills to this project.
• Is available to perform the scope of the work in a timely and professional manner.

Builds the diversity of the City’s public art collection.
 

Timeline/Schedule

May 18th, 2018: RFQ Application Deadline
May-June 2018: Artist selection panel review of qualifications and recommendation of List
June 2018: Approval of list by the Public Art Committee
June 2018: All Artists will be notified