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The North West’s ATTL project deadline has been extended but ACE will not increase funding

Mersey and Liver Building
Mersey
Photo: 

Stuart Grout Via Creative Commons

£425k of a £0.5m Arts Council England (ACE)-funded Artists Taking The Lead (ATTL) project in the North West has been paid to the artistic team, but the project has yet to materialise and is behind schedule, beset by technical and logistical problems. ‘Column’, by New York-based artist Anthony McCall, was conceived as a “spinning column of cloud” up to 10km high and 20m in diameter that will rise from the surface of the River Mersey and be visible up to 100km away. Due to be launched on 31 December 2011 and run for a full year, it has been delayed by a range of problems including the development of the technology needed and concerns raised by the Civil Aviation Authority as to whether Column would be a danger to air traffic – it will be on the flight path for Liverpool John Lennon Airport. ACE has extended the delivery date for the project, hoping for its completion by spring 2013, but will not be increasing its funding. An ACE spokesperson told AP that the funding body is “currently liaising with the team about the circumstances under which the remaining £75,000 might be released – which includes the Column appearing in the sky”. Although ACE’s standard terms and conditions for grants give it the option of recovering the grant if the project is not completed, this is not currently under consideration.
Three of the seven ATTL panel members who selected McCall’s Column as the winning bid later went on to join his project team – something that, as in Yorkshire (AP257), has raised questions about the independence of the judging process in the North West. Column Programme Director Tania Bryan was previously Visual Arts Officer: Design & Public Realm for ACE North West and was ACE’s representative on the panel. The Chair of the ATTL judging panel, Geoff Wood, Director of Working pArts Public Art Agency, and one of the other assessors, Stephen Snoddy, Director of the New Art Gallery in Walsall, are named as external advisors on McCall’s delivery team. Such relationships did not develop in other parts of the country. McCall himself is based in New York and is not currently in the UK, though ACE says he “is in constant contact with his Column project team and has made regular visits throughout the life of the project...”.