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DeCordova Museum and Sculpture Park
Sculpture Park

Submitting Work to the Sculpture Park

Click here for Non-Sculpture Park submission guidelines

 

To Place Pre-Existing Work in the Sculpture Park

DeCordova annually borrows a number of pre-existing large-scale outdoor contemporary sculptures for inclusion in the Sculpture Park. Loan periods range from 1–3 years, with a 1 year minimum. DeCordova pays all costs associated with shipping, site preparation, and installation. Artists participate in installations when feasible, and for the Sculpture Park, send a resume, slides of the specific sculpture, slides of other related work, and a brief statement including logistics and estimated budgets of transportation and installation to: DeCordova Museum and Sculpture Park, Curatorial Department, 51 Sandy Pond Road, Lincoln, Massachusetts 01773-2600. Decisions to accept works on loan are based not only on aesthetic grounds, but also on site availability, thematic and material balance within the Park, security and safety considerations, costs, and scheduling.

To Propose Site-Specific Works

Annually, DeCordova attempts to commission site-specific, temporary, long-term (1–5 years) sculptures or installations for the Sculpture Park. These works are funded exclusively through outside grants written by DeCordova staff. The Curatorial Department strongly suggests that each artist who wishes to submit a site-specific proposal visit the Sculpture Park in advance and discuss sites with a curator. Once a proposal is developed, it may be submitted in any visual form: models, drawings, photo-collages, architectural plans or renderings, etc. Artists must also provide a brief written description of the project, and include a detailed budget showing estimated costs for materials, fabrication, installation, transportation, and artist fee. From the pool of proposals received, the DeCordova Curatorial Department annually chooses a few for further development and grant writing. Grants are written for the total estimated cost of the project, and no projects are undertaken unless grant monies are received. Decisions to proceed to the grant writing stage are based not only on aesthetic and site criteria, but also on the probability that the projects will attract funding. Unfortunately, very few installations have been commissioned in recent years due to ever-decreasing grant monies earmarked for this purpose.

Guidelines and Restrictions

  1. There is no deadline for submission of proposals for the loan of pre-existing work or proposals for site-specific projects. Proposals are accepted and reviewed on a fluid basis throughout the year. Please allow a few months for a response to proposals.
  2. The DeCordova Sculpture Park accepts proposals from all American artists. The Sculpture Park is not limited to exhibiting work from the New England region.
  3. DeCordova does not purchase work for the Permanent Collection.
  4. Safety and size are major considerations. Outdoor work must be durable, resistant to the elements (including the high winds and freeze-and-thaw conditions of a New England winter), and not pose a threat to public safety. Work must also be large and/or heavy enough to discourage theft and vandalism. The DeCordova Sculpture Park is a public park on many acres—it is not locked at night.
  5. Sculptures and installations which are intended to be entered, traversed, or walked or climbed upon, must comply with the building codes of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.
  6. No work may be sited on, in, or within ten feet of Flint's Pond. The pond is the reservoir for the Town of Lincoln.
  7. Installations normally take place during warm months. Site preparation is impossible when the ground is frozen.
  8. All sculptures must have features which allow them to be secured to the ground, or to a concrete or wooden pad.
  9. Most site preparation and installation labor can be provided by DeCordova's Preparator and Buildings and Grounds staff.
  10. DeCordova expects a 10% commission should a work be sold due to its exhibition in the Sculpture Park.
  11. All artists exhibiting work in the Sculpture Park receive five free copies of each annual Sculpture Park Guide, as well as free publicity provided by the DeCordova Public Relations Department.
  12. For further information or clarification, contact DeCordova Curator Nick Capasso at 781/ 259-8355.

 

Curator's Biographies

Rachel Rosenfield Lafo, M. A. is Director of Curatorial Affairs and has been at the DeCordova Museum and Sculpture Park since 1983. Lafo has been in the museum curatorial field since 1978. Previously she was Associate Curator at the Portland Art Museum in Oregon, and Administrative Assistant for the Center for Conservation and Technical Studies at the Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University. Lafo is active as a curator, lecturer, guest critic, juror, and panelist. She has taught courses in museum studies at Boston University and Tufts University.

Lafo has been actively involved in selecting work and organizing exhibitions for DeCordova's Sculpture Park, among them Carlos Dorrien: The Nine Muses and Other Projects, and Robert Arneson: Bronze Self-Portraits and Drawings.

In addition to her work at DeCordova, she has been a visiting critic for the sculpture and glass departments of the Rhode Island School of Design, and served on panels for Urban Arts, the Vermont Council on the Arts, the General Services Administration Art-in-Architecture Program, the Massachusetts Council on the Arts and Humanities, and the Bunting Institute.

Lafo has also been a juror for an exhibition of site-specific environmental sculpture for the town of Carlisle, Massachusetts, a juror for the 1998 Portland Museum of Art Biennial exhibition, and a juror for public art competitions in the states of Washington and Oregon.

 

Nicholas Capasso, Ph.D. is Curator at the DeCordova Museum and Sculpture Park in Lincoln, Massachusetts, the largest museum of contemporary art in New England. He has worked extensively with contemporary art, outdoor sculpture, and commemorative public art as an art historian, curator, critic, lecturer, and design selection panelist.

In addition to his work at DeCordova, he has organized exhibitions of outdoor sculpture for the Boston Parks and Recreation Department, the Boston Children's Museum, the Leigh Yawkey Woodson Art Museum in Wausau, Wisconsin, and the Attleboro Museum, the Brookline Council on Arts and Humanities, and Bradley Palmer State Park, in Massachusetts. He has also participated in outdoor sculpture and public art juries for projects in Portland, Maine, and Acton, Boston, and Cambridge, Massachusetts. He recently served as a juror for the "1999 Directors/Curators Invitational" at the Franconia Sculpture Park in Shafer, Minnesota, and is on the advisory board of the Annemarie Garden sculpture park in Calvert County, Maryland. Capasso is currently writing a book on contemporary American sculptor John Van Alstine for Editions Ariel.

Capasso has written on aspects of contemporary commemorative public art for Sculpture magazine and Public Art Review, and has lectured on the topic at the Smithsonian Institution, the Fashion Institute of Technology, the Rhode Island School of Design, Boston University, Clark University, Wellesley College, Hartwick College, the National Assembly of Local Arts Agencies, and the International Sculpture Center. He recently served on selection panels for the Boston Women's Memorial and the Silver Spring, Maryland, Veterans Memorial Plaza national design competitions. His doctoral dissertation, written for Rutgers University, is The National Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Context: Commemorative Public Art in America, 1960-1997.