On Oct. 18, St. Petersburg's Pier Project Committee decided on six semi-finalists whose art will grace the new St. Petersburg Pier and approach (known as the Pier District). Of the 277 artists who applied, eight of those artists came from the Tampa Bay area — but none of them made the cut.
Why not?
The committee opted not to give preference to local (Sarasota, Manatee, Pinellas or Hillsborough) artists, but to judge each artist solely on merit.
"We decided early on as a committee that there would not be bonus points for being a local artist, that our job is that we find the very best artists that we can for St. Petersburg," Laura Bryant, the committee chair, said Monday in an interview.
Why not? After all, St. Pete is currently building its brand on being a homegrown arts community.
Turns out, the committee struggled with this decision and, Bryant says, she's confident they did the right thing. Here's why:
One of the architects for the project argued against awarding bonus points to local artists, saying his firm wouldn't bid on jobs that specified they would give preferential treatment to artists who met the committee's requirement and also lived locally.
"If you're giving bonus points for locals," he argued, "you run the risk that you may not to get the best people applying."
Also, Bryant said, one committee member raised the issue that "if every community was giving preference to local artists, then our local artists would have no ability to go and work in other communities."
"Did we possibly miss some people? Of course we could have," she admits, because "everyone gets their first chance somewhere, but this wasn't going to be anybody's first chance. It's public money and we took very seriously the task of spending the public's money wisely.
"Talent or quality is only one criteria for selecting finalists. [The local artists who submitted] is a very talented, experienced, professional group of artists whose work appears locally, nationally and internationally. The committee recognized this in their discussion," said Ann Wykell, the committee consultant who has worked with public art in St. Petersburg since… well, practically since forever.
"What kind of experience would this artist's work give you?" the committee asked as they looked at each artist's existing body of work. Bryant and the nine volunteers on the committee selected the six semi-finalists: Nathan Mabry (Los Angeles), Ned Kahn (California), Jeppe Hein (Berlin), Xenobia (Harlem), Ball-Nogues Studios (Los Angeles) and Jun Kaneko (Nebraska) will give the committee their proposals for the two projects at the Pier and the Pier approach (the two projects could be more if a wealthy benefactor steps forward and offers more money for other art projects).
The committee started researching public art in other communities in June 2016. Wykell came on board as a consultant in August when Bryant realized "it as more than I as a volunteer could manage." In the spring of 2017, they committee posted an open call for artists to submit their letters of interest. From there Wykell began vetting them based on the requirements set forth by the committee: "having a completed body of work of similar scope, scale, and budget range as well as familiarity with the integration of design and installation into an ongoing construction project."
If they met those qualifications, then the committee did a more extensive review of the work.
Bottom line? The locals didn't make the final cut because "there was other work we were more interested in," Bryant says.
"It's worth noting we have a lot of great artists here, a lot of amazing emerging artists, but not that many outdoor artists," Ben Kirby, who works in Mayor Rick Kriseman's office, said, also pointing out "the list we now have features an array of impressive national and international artists, and I think that speaks to St. Petersburg being a city recognized on the global stage."
Bryant knows some may be upset at the committee's decision, but she also feels confident the committee did what was the best interest of the taxpayers and of the community.
"You have to go forward," Bryant said "and do what is right for the public trust that you've been given."
Cathy Salustri is the arts + entertainment editor. Contact her here.
This article appears in Oct 19-26, 2017.