This handbook provides the definitive guide to commissioning contemporary art. Every step and stage is revealed and demystified - from the initial invitation to an artist to the financing of a project, from the drafting of contracts to the final siting and installation of works, from the care and preservation of commissioned pieces to their interpretation and publicity. Combining theoretical and conceptual considerations with practical ones, Buck and McClean's lively and instructive text is supplemented with copious quotations and insights from some of the best-known artists, curators, commissioners and museum directors of today, including Nicholas Serota, Hans Ulrich Obrist, Jeff Koons, Vito Acconci, Mark Wallinger, Anish Kapoor, RoseLee Goldberg, Thomas Krens, Anne Pasternak, Barbara Gladstone, Mera Rubell, and Olafur Eliasson, to provide a detailed and informed how-to guide to the commissioning process.

Sarah Lucas is an internationally celebrated artist known for the provocative use of materials and imagery in her work. Incorporating ordinary objects in unexpected ways, she has consistently challenged our understandings of sex, class and gender over the last four decades. Looking beyond the generation of 1990s Young British Artists during which Lucas emerged, this visually stunning exhibition book invites the public to marvel at the diversity of her work across sculpture, installation and photography. Breaking boundaries with her bawdy humour and bold daring, Lucas shows us the whole spectrum of what it truly means to be human.

fig-2 brings together material from the eponymous arts programming of 50 projects in 50 consecutive weeks, curated by Fatos Ustek and staged at the Institute of Contemporary Arts throughout 2015. The publication is an embodiment of all the projects, events and activities that fig-2 generated, complemented by specially commissioned essays and conducted interviews that reflect on and respond to the conceptual framework and ambition of fig-2 in capturing the aesthetic and critical currency of our times. Artists whose works are featured in the publication include Laura Eldret, Suzanne Treister, Tom McCarthy, Annika Strom, Oreet Ashery, Broomberg & Chanarin, Eva Rothschild & Joe Moran, Melanie Manchot and Bruce McLean, among many others.

Sarah Lucas is an internationally celebrated artist known for the provocative use of materials and imagery in her work. Incorporating ordinary objects in unexpected ways, she has consistently challenged our understandings of sex, class and gender over the last four decades. Looking beyond the generation of 1990s Young British Artists during which Lucas emerged, this visually stunning exhibition book invites the public to marvel at the diversity of her work across sculpture, installation and photography. Breaking boundaries with her bawdy humour and bold daring, Lucas shows us the whole spectrum of what it truly means to be human.