STARA - 14.11.2015, Qupperneq 41

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At that time, a law concerning pub-
lic projects took effect stipulating
that “at least 1% of the total build-
ing expense of new public buildings
should go towards art in the build-
ing itself, or its surrounding area”.
Since 2012, The Public Buildings
Arts Fund and the one per cent
stipulation have appertained the law
concerning visual art, the fourth
chapter of those laws bearing the
title “Art on public buildings and in
public spaces”.
When the one per cent rule was
legalized, the optimists thought it
would render The Public Buildings
Art Fund obsolete. The interplay be-
tween those two elements - the one
per cent rule and the laws governing
the Public Buildings Art Fund - was
meant to lead to the discontinua-
tion of the fund. The idea was that
before too long, art work would
adorn every public building. But
that development has been slow to
say the least, not only because how
meagre the fund is, but because the
one per cent rule has routinely been
ignored and more often than not it
has been deemed “necessary” to use
the money for other things when
projects have exceeded the estimate.
The Public Buildings Art Fund
board has five experts; two repre-
sentatives of the visual artists, two
architects and a proxy for the min-
istry. Their job is, on one hand, to
serve as consultants concerning art
works in new buildings, and on the
other to allocate grants to projects
in older buildings. Additionally, the
fund has provided money to the res-
toration of publicly owned art work.
According to the law, the fund is
meant to finance its operation itself,
which is fine as long as the funds
allow it. In 2003, the parliament
contributed 8 million ISK into The
Public Buildings Art Fund. In the
following years that number was
slightly cut back, although it was
still 7.1 million ISK from 2008-2010.
Since 2011 however, the contribu-
tion has been 1.5 million ISK a year
and will be the same in 2016, for the
sixth year running. The SÍM office,
which has managed the fund, has
kept the daily operational budget at
a bare minimum. Even so, the yearly
contribution now does not cover
anything but the daily operation.
As far as I know the fund’s board
meets as infrequently as it can to
keep costs down and the need to
meet is probably not high with so
few projects going on. On the fund’s
web site is a message saying that no
application will be accepted in the
foreseeable future. The question is
whether those with authority to ap-
propriate funds realize the predica-
ment of the fund‘s board?
Unfortunately visual artists have
not always mounted a guard around
The Public Buildings Art Fund.
Some feel that the Icelandic name,
Listskreytingasjóður, which literally
means The Decorative Art Fund, is
insulting because it equates art with
decoration and want to disband
the fund on those grounds. I also
remember a discussion about the
necessity to find a new name. As far
as I know, a better one has not been
found and hopefully people have
ceased to be so concerned about the
name because The Public Buildings
Art Fund is important in so many
ways. The project to improve peo-
ple’s surroundings is a worthy one
and there are still plenty of public
buildings in use today that were
completed before 1999. An active
Public Buildings Art Fund creates
work for visual artists with project
grants and by making sure that the
laws governing visual art on or in
new public buildings are followed.
I was fortunate enough to work on a
project for the fund on the outpa-
tient department of the psychiatric
ward of the National University
Hospital of Iceland at Kleppur. It
was an extremely gratifying pro-
ject and I was acutely aware of how
much a small sum can accomplish.
I doubt many funds could have
achieved as much for as little as The
Public Buildings Art Fund. And few
are run for as little money as The
Public Buildings Art Fund within
the offices of SÍM. I think it is time
we take up the mantle for The Pub-
lic Buildings Art Fund and demand
that it be allowed to do its job. The
only thing that needs to be done
is to raise the contribution. Then
everything will work.
“The project to improve people’s sur-
roundings is a worthy one and there are
still plenty of public buildings in use
today that were completed before 1999.”