18th Street Arts Center

Request for Qualifications:
Artist(s) to Work With Design Team

Deadline: MONDAY OCTOBER 22, 2007

PROJECT

18th Street Arts Center, a Santa Monica arts complex (www.18thstreet.org), is in the beginning stages of planning for the redevelopment of its facility and site. It is recruiting a process-oriented artist or artist team to become part of the design team.

This is a request for qualifications only, not a request for proposals or art projects. Qualified artist(s) will have a documented professional background in any media or discipline (including public art; creative fiction, nonfiction, or playwriting; visual art; film or new media; or performance art) as well as a demonstrated track record of success working collaboratively with large teams and meeting project deadlines.

The artist or team selected will be awarded a design fee of $20,000. We anticipate that the selected artist’s participation would be from January 2008 through December 2011 and a specific work plan and time line would be negotiated with the selected artist. Because the project will require the artist to attend community meetings and meet with a design team in the Los Angeles region, we expect that the successful candidate will be primarily based in Southern California for the duration of the project. The artist will be responsible for leading the process of developing creative ways to conceptualize and document 18th Street’s rich history and engage the community through design. The process will ultimately result in a public art project that will be integrated into our site. The commission for the creation of the artwork will be a separate fee and become part of the construction budget.

ORGANIZATIONAL BACKGROUND

18th Street Arts Center was founded in 1988, by the publishers of High Performance Magazine – an internationally successful alternative art review. 18th Street was created in response to a significant historic period in contemporary art. During the late 1970’s and 1980’s the feminist and multicultural arts movements converged in their mutual need for legitimate performance and exhibition spaces. This need fueled the creation of many alternative arts spaces, including 18th Street, that filled the void created by museums and galleries who would not provide access to artists of color and women artists. A few of the notable artists and organizations that have called 18th Street home include Guillermo Gomez-Pena, Coco Fusco, Phranc, Cornerstone Theater, Marcus Kuiland-Nazario, Keith Antar Mason, The Hittite Empire, Francisco Letelier, Dan Kwong, Denise Uyehara, and Electronic Cafe International. Several new arts organizations were founded at 18th Street as well, including Highways Performance Space, Community Arts Resources (CARS), and Side Street Projects. In addition, 18th Street has hosted over 150 visiting artists from all over the world, most of whom are highly regarded in their own country; professionally exhibited the work of hundreds of American artists; and trained over 100 Southern California artists to teach standards-based art in public schools.

From its alternative inception, 18th Street has defied easy labels – it is part arts incubator, part residency center and part multi-tenant nonprofit. Regardless, a commitment to affordability and community building through the arts remains at our core and will continue to be central to the new facility. Thus, the artist(s) selected will have a key role in our overall project design.

APPLICATION REQUIREMENTS

Each artist/team should submit one (1) complete, one-sided, collated and paper-clipped sets and a Mac compatible electronic file (on a CD) of the following written materials.
Each set should contain one of each of the following, in the order given. Please do not bind materials and do not submit in plastic sleeves, folders or binders.

Artist statement of interest (1 page maximum), including a summary of relevant past experience, current personal/professional interest in the project, and availability to participate.
Resume.
Optional: No more than 3 pages of copies of relevant reviews, articles, etc., on 8 ½” x 11” paper.

AND

Examples of previous work:

Visual artists applying should submit one set of ten 35 mm slides in a plastic slide sheet numbered and labeled; or one set of 10 photographic prints (no larger than 8.5” by 11”), each labeled with title of artwork and artist’s name; or one MAC-compatible CD with 10 images meeting the following specifications:
JPEGs ONLY no larger than 1500 x 1500 pixels, 300 dpi and 2 MB, titled with the artist’s name and a number that corresponds to the annotated slide list (For example: Jen Jones 001, Jen Jones 002, etc.) that includes title, date, media, dimension. MAC-compatible CD ROMs must be clearly labeled with the artist’s name.
Writers may submit one set of photocopies or one MAC-compatible CD ROM of no more than 20 pages of written work, each page clearly labeled with the writer’s name. In addition, submit a descriptive list to indicate if/where work has been published.
Performance artists or filmmakers may submit one DVD with no more than three 15-minute selections of work. In addition, submit a descriptive list of where work has been performed or exhibited.

A self-addressed, correctly sized and stamped envelope for the return of slides only.

Disclaimer: 18th Street Arts Center reserves the right to cancel this RFQ and deny all submissions.

Submit completed applications by 5:30pm on October 22, 2007 to:
RFQ for Artists, 18th Street Arts Center, 1639 18th Street,
Santa Monica, CA, 90404
For more information, please contact Jan Williamson at 310.453.3711 x111,
or office@18thstreet.org

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