Artist Placement Group (APG)

The APG was conceived by Barbara Steveni in 1965 and established a year later by Steveni,  John Latham, Barry Flanagan, David Hall, Anna Ridley and Jeffrey Shaw, among others. Between 1966 and the turn of the eighties, APG negotiated approximately fifteen placements for artists lasting from a few weeks to several years; first within industries (often large corporations such as British Steel and ICI) and later within UK government departments such as the Department of the Environment and the Scottish Office. APG arranged that artists would work to an ‘open brief’, whereby their placements were not required to produce tangible results, but that the engagement itself could potentially benefit both host organisations as well as the artists in the long-term.