Arts $22,275
posted by on February 22 at 17:50 PM
That’s the amount that the Tacoma Art Museum took in from entry fees for its biennial. The cost to each artist was $25, and the number of artists who entered their work, hoping to be put into the show, was 891.
But the museum made no secret of having selected the artists based on already-established reputations. Trying to have it both ways makes for a namby-pamby biennial, as I wrote in this week’s edition.
Does it also mean that the 850 artists not in the show were made to bankroll somebody’s else’s show unknowingly?
TAM is not as wealthy as SAM, and perhaps it sees the biennial as a sort of tit-for-tat with the regional art community: you pay a fee, we’ll give you the chance to show in a museum, along with your peers. And $25 is not going to make or break any individual.
But if the artists had little or no chance to begin with, then it seems a dastardly move, not to mention unsustainable (after a time, will anybody be left willing to apply but the most desperate?).
I’m waiting for comment from biennial curator Rock Hushka.
UPDATE:
“It was not an open call, it was a call to artists,” Hushka says. “It was with a specific statement, and the artists who applied self-selected.”
Hushka says that the call to artists did not state that anyone and everyone would be considered equally, but instead communicated that the show was intended to be a review of the already critically and popularly received work from the past two years.
Hushka will send me the exact wording, and I’ll share then. If that’s the case, then artists were informed, and applied at their own risk.
As for the $22,275 (plus $225 the museum kicked in): the money went to $500 honorariums to each of the included artists, and to pay $1,500 to the critic’s choice award recipient (Denzil Hurley). Five hundred dollars will go to the people’s choice award, and voting for that will continue through the show, which closes May 6, Hushka says.
UPDATE #2:
The call is as follows (I’ll highlight the part meant to give fair warning about the exhibition’s content):
The 8th Northwest Biennial will provide a strong critical analysis of the region’s contemporary art production and is structured to prompt a meaningful dialogue about the Northwest’s artistic strengths and accomplishments. The biennial will provide a timely opportunity to understand how the region’s artists respond to broad national and international trends and ideas while developing their own independent artistic vision and nurturing the region’s artistic vitality. Artists working in a broad spectrum of media including traditional forms, craft-based work, and digital projects are encouraged to apply. Artists exploring alternative aesthetic impulses such as conceptual, performance, and installation also are encouraged to submit portfolios.
Rather than select specific works of art by a slide jury, the focus of the 8th Northwest Biennial will be the scope of the artist’s contributions and recent accomplishments. Individual artists will be invited to participate in the exhibition through a collaborative jury by David Kiehl, Curator of Prints at the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, and Rock Hushka, Curator of Contemporary and Northwest Art at Tacoma Art Museum. All artists will be reviewed through portfolio submissions, and finalists will be selected after studio visits by Kiehl and Hushka. A catalogue will accompany the exhibition.
In other words, untested talent need not apply.
You still have to wonder: is a call to artists the most effective way to put together a best-of exhibition? And is an already-established, best-of retro the best biennial for the NW?
The museum is having a panel on this very subject (including yours truly, along with other critics and curators) at 1 pm on March 10, titled “Globalism, Nationalism and Regionalism: Why a Northwest Biennial?”
Show up—it should be a lively discussion.
Who cares? Looked to me like it was all that Seattle area BS "art" anyway. So played out, it's all so nice and sweet and meaningless.
Seattle has no art scene, just a bunch of gay homos making garbage.
Who cares? Looked to me like it was all that Seattle area BS "art" anyway. So played out, it's all so nice and sweet and meaningless.
Seattle has no art scene, just a bunch of gay homos making garbage.
So, basically, you're saying that 850 artists shouldn't have "donated' $25. because they should have known that their work wasn't worthy? As with all juried shows, one has the choice whether to fork over an entrance fee, and I'd assume that choice would be determined by whether one thought, or cared whether,they "had a shot" or not.
I think a juried NW Biennial implies that the selection would be based on what the curators thought was the best work of the region...
Obviously, you don't agree with the choice. That's fine, I don't either. Just the same, That has little to do with whether an artist should have had the foresight to determine if their work might not be selected and save $25.
I moreso agree that an exhibit like that should have been curated, and should have been a larger show. $25,000 should easily be "donated" by patrons who might see the value of an exhibit of NW Art representated with better stature.
"representated"
represented
http://www.sedersgallery.com/Artists/094/HurleyRESf.htm
money well spent I'd say - we've never seen anything like this before -
http://www.elizabethleach.com/Artist-Detail.cfm?ArtistsID=115
or this - apparently inspired by a biology class or text - remarkable vision - so apropos of the zeitgeist yet abstract all at the same time
bloddy rot
As they say in the lotto, you've got to be in it to win. Besides, paying an entry fee is more than a way to offset the time curators spend managing applications, paying the bills at TAM and awarding winners. When artists "pitch in" (like tax payers) they contribute to the strength of their own art or film community or in this case, the NW Biennial. Would we be better off without the Biennial?
we would be better off with a biennial that found the best work in the region, maybe even the best *new* work in the region, rather than the most recognized
So, what's the problem?
yo, Rufus!
Gay Homos?
you must be one of them strait heteros...
I don't know how these things work in the visual arts world (well, I guess now I do), but if this were a similar situation in the theatrical medium, presenters who weren't slotted because demand outstripped supply would receive a refund of their entry fees.
Of course, we do things a little more democratically; slotting is done on a first-come-first-served basis for juried events such as festivals (or done by-invitation), so the issue of pre-judging doesn't really come up.
Still, this does smack somewhat of elitism, which may be all well-and-good so far as it goes, but also knowing that many artists are not the sharpest chisels on the bench when it comes to left-brain activities such as reading the fine print, it does seem a bit disingenuous on the surface at least to demand an "entry fee" but not provide "entry".
On the other hand, it's pretty clear most of the "artists" submitting entries never had a realistic shot at getting into the exhibition in the first place, but I still can't help feeling the process is perhaps just a tad exploitive, encouraging those with little hope of acceptance to cough up a total of $21,250, which TAM then doles out to the few who do get in.
Hazard.
Has Art?
Canard.
Can Art?
“I either want less corruption, or more CHANCE to participate in it.”
--Ashleigh Brilliant
“The art of taxation consists in so plucking the GOOSE as to obtain the largest possible amount of feathers with the smallest possible amount of hissing”
-Jean Baptiste Colbert
This is a highbrow version of a scam often foisted on artists.
There are a bazzillion would-be artists in the world. I'm one of them. So if a gallery or museum simply allowed wide open submissions, they would drown under the shear volume of submissions, most of which are, well, not very good. So it is understandable that they want some way of reducing the overall volume, and at the same time weeding out some of the weaker work. To some degree, charging a submission fee achieves both goals. It reduces the number of submissions to a manageable level. And since most artists are poor, the entry fee acts as a self selection tool. I can't afford to spend $25 to enter every gallery and museum artists call that I hear about, so I have to pick and choose which I think I might have the best chance of being accepted.
That is where the difference lays between a legit artist call and a scam. It is legit if I have an equal chance with other artists who submit. It is a scam if I have no real chance, and they are simply pocketing my submission money. If TAM was jurying all the submitted work on an equal footing, preferably with the jury not knowing the identity of the artists, then it is a fair system. If the system is rigged, or the jurists know the names that match the art and are encouraged to choose artists they know, then it is a scam.
I'd be curious to see the language of the "disclosure" that TAM made in their call to artists. If they made it very clear that there would be a bias to the jury, then caveat emptor. But I'm guessing that if almost a thousand artists responded to the call for artists, then it seems unlikely that their bias disclosure was very clear.
Shame on TAM.
art=business.
notice that the call for artists states: Artists working in a broad spectrum of media including traditional forms, craft-based work....
THAT line gave artists the (false)impression that TAM was looking for a broad range of artists and not just ones whose work is alreay in the TAM collection.
HOW many traditional/craft-based work is included in the show? There is Joe Fedderson, who usually does prints and also baskets, who has glass vessels that reference Native American basketry in the biennial, just so that TAM can say they have craft and a non-white artist living outside of Seattle (lives in Olympia but is represented by a Portland gallery) in the show, see how broad the spectrum is?
I also wonder if some of the artists who are included were specifically invited/personally encouraged to "enter" (that happens,too, even in "juried" shows); I find it hard to believe that an artist like Spafford would otherwise bother to enter such a show.
TAM once had Craft biennials alternating with the "fine art' biennials, and emerging NW artists really did have a chance to be included.
I am looking forward to hearing what Jen and the rest have to say about this show.
Hey, the artists who were rejected did get an invitation to the opening, which included free food (and a cash bar), which would otherwise cost $10 to get in the door, so they did get something back for their entry fee.
Of course, the accepted artists were invited an hour earlier, to the donor reception, where free champagne in glass flutes was served.
Submission fee [pun intended] = $25
Postage = 39 cents
Admission to the party = $0
Getting your work in front of a curator from The Whitney [however brief] = priceless
Since I received the call via direct mail -- TAM contacted me directly -- I thought I had a chance.
I am what I like to call a pre-emerging artist and I think my work is fairly good (though not particularly trendy).
However I don't have much of a track record; I thought it would be a blind jury (didn't read the fine print, last time I'll make that mistake).
I live on about $10,000 per year so $25 is a lot of money and yes, I'm bitter and pissed. I don't plan to have much to do with TAM going forward, ever. (And boy, will they be sorry when I'm famous...)
I am happy to pay a fee, but only if I think I have a chance based on VISUAL MERITS.
I think clarification of what I biennial should be is an excellent idea. I just assumed that since a jury was involved selection would be blind. I would really like my $25 back, please.
Scott... those are great!
Als....Well, there are some less knowns in the show like Buddy Bunting and Portland's MacK Mcfarland. Sure, both are active in their scenes and have been doing increasingly strong work as of late so Im not so certain the selection process is as flawed or closed as some infer.
It is the overall effect of the show that is what seems to be really irksome to many....
For example, had the Portland Art Museum done this for the recent Oregon Biennial it wouldn't have been pretty. The difference is Tacoma isn't Portland or Seattle and the question of who the intended audience might be is key here.
What is interesting is the activity level and quality present in the region have risen enough to make the Tacoma show an issue.
I entered knowing it would be a complete crap shoot. Why? because there is still the 1 in 1000 chance I'd get in as a nobody. Better odds at playing the lottery, but this is the only major regional arts competition left. There is no other way to get any major recognition outside the primarily private gallery scene. I think it sucks and there is not enough support for emerging artists who are not already known entities, but there's not much you can do about it. There are a handful of other local juried shows and I've participated in a few but no one ever pays any attention to them.
I forgot to mention, there is 1 other somewhat prestigeous regional arts juried show. Coos Art Museum has one very year. It doesn't get anything near the level of attention as the TAM biennial, but it is a museum level regional blind juried show with a 3 purchase prizes. It's also highly competative but at least it's a blind jury. I think last year had like 38 artists accepted by 192 people submitting. Still rough, but gotta like those odds a bit better.
It is clear to me that intentionally or unintentionally, TAM misrepresented, or underepresented qualifications necessary to be selected for the show. The jargon used in the call is amorphous enough that its coded message of exclusion/inclusion allows a great deal of room for interpretation, again intentionally or unintentionally.
There have been some comments that have teased from this mess some positive spin: exposure of work to high level curators, "free" invitation to opening, etc.
However many of these positives we evoke or construe, there remains the original issue: it is clear that intentionally or unintentionally, TAM misrepresented, or underepresented qualifications necessary to be selected for the show.
I would like two things from TAM:
1) an appology
2) a refund of my $25
The naivete of some of these comments is staggering. An apology? A refund? A "pre-emerging artist" who is already "bitter and pissed"? Wow.
Scott Lawrimore's comment is the most observant: getting your work in front of a curator from the Whitney (however brief) was priceless.
Now, shut up and get back to work.
Does Jen Graves get paid to be on the panel? Perhaps she can enlarge even more art-scene molehills than she already does on the Slog.
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