(Un) Well-Hung

As a rule, I don’t enter juried exhibitions.  Juried shows are just another form of the ‘pay-to-display’ scheme/scam and are a waste of time, effort and money ninety-nine percent of the time.  Occasionally, for the young artist especially, one can rationalize entering one of these ‘competitions.’  There could be cash prizes, or the juror may be someone influential that you’d like to see your work, or perhaps the exhibition venue is someplace you’d like to exhibit.  If you’re lucky enough to get your work juried into the show the usual (and often, only) benefit is having a group show to add to your resume.  Statistically-speaking, you’re not going to win the cash prize, you’re not going to sell any art and you’re not going to be ‘discovered’ at a juried show.

I do keep up with the ‘calls-for-entry’ but I’m highly selective to the point of only submitting to one or two of these things per year.  Although I’m very discerning I did chose to submit to what I thought would be an interesting exhibition recently.  Sadly, and all too commonly, my selection of the particular exhibition turned out to be an especially bad selection –but not for the reason you may think.

I picked up a flyer advertising ‘artist opportunities’ sponsored by an organization called:

The organization is a nonprofit and has been around for over twenty years.  Their mission statement seemed legit and the organization is involved in advocating for the arts statewide.  The theme of one exhibition really caught my attention: 

Source: Artists and their Inspirations

This is an opportunity for artists to share with others the source of what inspires them to make art and return to the studio day after day. The broad theme allows artists to share what they see, feel, and/or hear, and how that is infused in their art or interpreted by them. Each piece of art will be accompanied by a short statement about the source of what inspired the work. Each statement must not exceed 100 words.

I have a large number of works that have interesting inspirational stories and I could easily write one-hundred words any of them.  This also caught my eye:

Cash & Ribbon Awards:

1st Place $400 cash & ribbon President’s Award $100 & ribbon

2nd Place $300 cash & ribbon People’s Choice Award, ribbon only

3rd Place $200 cash & ribbon Two (2) Merit Awards, ribbons only

And so I made the decision to spend forty dollars to submit three artworks for consideration by the juror.  I was gratified that two of the three pieces I’d submitted were juried into the exhibition.  

 

Here are the two artworks I delivered to the gallery with their 100-word inspirational back-stories:

 Seventy-Six Years

A painting titled The Angelus, painted by Jean Francois Millet in 1859 hung outside a classroom where Salvador Dali was an art student.  The Angelus was the inspiration for Dali when he painted Archeological Reminiscence of The Angelus by Millet in 1935.  I’ve always like Dali’s painting and in 2011 it became the inspiration for my own homage to Dali and Millet with my photo/digital artwork, Seventy-Six Years.  Coincidentally Dali painted his homage 76 years after the Millet painting and my homage to Dali was created 76 years after the Dali painting, hence the title, Seventy-Six years.  Interesting coincidence!

 

  Homage to Lorrence

Lorrence, my Grandfather, was an amateur photographer.  When he passed all of his Kodachrome transparencies, went to my Father who forgot about them for almost fifty years.  Eventually the Kodachromes came to me.  I scanned some of them, digitally cut-out the vintage people, and composited them into my own surreal works.  To honor my Grandfather’s inspiration I created this visual homage to him.  The camera in the foreground is an Argus C-3, the camera he used.  The Polaroid photo is a picture of Lorrence and the Post Office in the background relates to my Grandfather’s job as a Postal Inspector.

 

I thought both images were strong, fit the theme perfectly, with back-stories that were informative and inspirational.  I was very happy to be a part of the exhibition ---that was until I SAW the exhibition.

I drove nearly 200 miles (R/T) to attend the opening reception only to discover the exhibition wasn’t very well presented and one of my artworks was relegated to a dark corner, by an exit, and hung between the control panel for a security system and a fire-extinguisher!  To say it was a shitty placement is an understatement.  The few who did wander into the corner seemed more mesmerized by the blinking lights of the security panel.  My artwork was largely unnoticed.

 

Here’s how they chose to display my artwork:

As disappointed and embarrassed as I was I didn’t say anything to the gallery-people.  I’ve been around too long, and I know complaining, arguing, or making a scene is a worthless endeavor.  Irrespective of the transgression, the one who complains is always painted as the asshole, so I shut up.  They’re not going to accommodate anyway, so I don’t waste my time talking.  

 

It took me a while to find my other artwork because it wasn’t even hung inside the main gallery:

 

That’s my artwork in the upper left.

Displayed about four feet above eye-level & impossible see unless you back up

so far that the details are lost.

 

When this occurs the common excuse from the gallery is, “…oh, well, we had so many pieces that we fit them in wherever we could…”  Of course this is bullshit.  As I stood in the gallery, as unnoticed personally as my artwork, I spotted at least three locations in the main gallery where my work would have fit just fine.  But no, someone made a decision that the fire-extinguisher corner was best for my artwork.  And the other artwork would have also fit inside the main gallery and at eye-level too!

Their installation of the exhibition, and my works in particular, was thoughtless, uncaring, unprofessional, unworthy of my work, and deficient of any consideration of the art or artist.  The pride I’d felt in my work and its exhibition was instantly vaporized and replaced with hurt, anger and profound disappointment.  And it’s INSULTING!

If you’re not involved in the exhibition of artworks you’ve probably never even thought about this stuff, but to the exhibiting artist it’s a Big Deal.  No one wants to spend hours creating an artwork, and then spend money to get it exhibited only to find it relegated to some corner, or behind a door, or in the bathroom hallway, or any place that makes it difficult (or impossible) for the viewer to see.  AND it is SO EASY to install an exhibition where all the artworks can be seen.  All the gallerist or installer has to do is THINK.  Consider if they were the artist would they like their work in a particular placement?  Can the artwork be easily seen by the viewer?  Is the artwork displayed like it is a part of the exhibition?  

 

I’m thinking about attaching this to every future delivery of artwork:

Although they need to be instructed on how to do their jobs but this would probably just piss them off to the point where they’d hang my artwork upside down, above the toilet, in the employee bathroom.

 I’ll never exhibit again with the Arizona Arts Alliance.

February 4, 2023

A FALSE MEMORY or PARALLEL UNIVERSE?

When I began my professional career in photography I used a number of different photo labs.  Back in the 1980s, in a large city (Houston, Texas) there were many labs, unlike today where there are hardly any, anywhere.  I used labs near to the studio, or near to the client and tried them all.  After a while I learned which ones were good, which ones were not so good and which ones were best for certain specialties.  Eventually I figured out that one lab got the earliest Kodachrome processing delivery, and which lab was best for C-41 or E-6 film processing.  All my black and white processing and printing was done by me, in-house, but I learned which labs were best for C-prints or Type-R or Cibachrome or other things.  All in all I used about a half-dozen different photo labs, but there was this one lab…

I have clear memories of occasionally using this one photo-lab, but now, well, I don’t think it really existed; I think I have a ‘false memory.’  I recall using a particular lab, not frequently, but from time to time, for film processing.  I have no recollection of the name of the lab or the names of any of the people there.  The lab was in a multi-story building, not a high-rise or skyscraper, but not the typical strip-center type photo lab either.  The building was near the Medical Center and I remember having to ride an elevator up a few floors.  Once inside the door there was just a simple counter, usually staffed by a woman, inside a large, studio-like room.  Linoleum floor, industrial fluorescent lighting, no windows.  I recall the smells of chemistry.  It was an older studio-lab, seemingly run by old guys doing ‘bread and butter’ photography like copywork, and slide duplication, and simple tabletop studio photography.  Whoever they were, they weren’t a big deal and were not like the guys I knew from our local photo-district, aka, the ‘photo ghetto.’

The people at this lab, usually it was just the lady behind the counter that I dealt with, were always very nice, professional and courteous.  Nice folks.  Why didn’t I use that lab more often?

Could it be because it never really existed?

This was a time period roughly from the early 1980s to the early 1990s.  I can remember the names of most of the labs I’d used, and their locations.  For this ‘mystery lab’ I can vaguely remember the location but not the name.  Although I didn’t use that lab often, I remember going there on multiple occasions.

Yet I can’t remember the name nor do I have any receipts from the place.  (I don’t archive receipts from over thirty years ago, but…)

What’s happening here?  I have clear memories of the place: the approximate location, the elevator, the fluorescent lighting, the large studio-room, the counter, the nice people, the smell and always being happy with my processed film.  Yet, now, I’m starting to think that the place never really existed.

It’s not really a big deal.  Life goes on just fine.  But I wonder, was it real, is it a false memory, or do I have a brain tumor or something?  Why do I have this memory but there’s absolutely nothing physical (real, provable) attached to it?  None of this really matters today but it’s certainly odd.

So after thinking about this one night during the hypnogogic state I asked someone I know has some psychic ability – my wife.  She answered, with great certainty I should add, that I’d experienced a “brief intersection of different universes or parallel realities.”  She went on, “somewhere in the multiverse there’s a version of you that uses that photo-lab, briefly this version of you visited that parallel universe and that’s where the memory comes from.”

Hmmmmm, okay, that’s some kind of explanation.  Possibly plausible and definitely unprovable.

That’s it.  That’s all I’ve got, just a memory.  And I’m really beginning to believe that lab never existed (in my universe, anyway) and my memory isn’t accurate.  I’ll never know, but at this point I’m comfortable thinking my memory is false.  Now, if I should ever find out the lab was real, I’ll really freak-out!

Does anyone have any other theories?  I’m open to hearing them all!