Call for artists
A public invitation to artists to apply for a commission or opportunity, setting out the project, site, budget, eligibility, timeline, and how submissions will be judged.
Calls come in three flavours: open (anyone eligible may apply), invitational (a curated shortlist is asked to respond), and direct selection (one artist is approached, usually for small budgets or urgent timelines). Open calls maximize discovery; invitational calls save everyone's time when the field is genuinely known.
The quality of a call is easy to judge: it states the budget as a number, the selection criteria as a list, and pays finalists for any concept work it asks of them. Calls that hide the budget or request free design work get weaker pools, because experienced artists skip them.