New: Local Authority

Nils van Beek (curator at TAAK) contributed the essay 'Legitimisation, please!' to a new book featuring European perspectives on commissioning public art.

Research for the essays began at the Commissions+International Symposium on Public Art organised by Fingal County Council.

Original participants at the symposium, Cécile Bourne-Farrell, Nils van Beek and María Mur Dean, were invited to return to the ideas recorded that day to reflect on how recent economic and political upheavals have affected the commissioning of public art nationally and internationally. An accompanying critical and historical essay by Dave Beech unpacks the aspirations and expectations expressed through the ideas and practices of public art in Europe. A foreword by Caroline Cowley outlines the strategies adopted by Fingal County Council’s Public Art Programme to build common cause with groundbreaking producers and agencies.Daniel Jewesbury’s Introduction interrogates what is at stake in the commissioning of public art, the risks and opportunities, and an afterword by Valerie Connor reviews the impetus for the publication.