Tadeusz Westawic on wed 20 may 98
Would I be stirring-up too much trouble by inquiring about the practice
of jurying competition applicants from actual works (as opposed to the
common practice of jurying from slides)?
Is this practiced outside of Japan?
How does this work? Doesn't it bias the entries received in favor of the
country hosting the competition?
Is this as bad as I think it is or am I missing some salient redeeming
characteristic?
Tadzu -- Announcing: Full recovery from computer crash but lost all
email addresses. If we talked to one another in the past two years,
please drop me a line.
Dannon Rhudy on thu 21 may 98
----------------------------Original
message----------------------------
....... inquiring about the practice
of jurying competition applicants from actual works .....
Is this practiced outside of Japan?....
Yes, but it is not common because of the cost of shipping the
works, the relative cheapness/convenience of slides; and perhaps
most important, the lack of space to display/judge hundreds or
thousands of pieces of work.
...... bias the entries received in favor of the
country hosting the competition?.....
It might, but - so what?
.....Is this as bad as I think ....
It does not seem inherently "bad" to me. There is nothing like
looking at an actual work to judge it. Slides lie, and with
computer enhancement they lie a LOT sometimes. The downside is
that it is very costly to ship, unpack, reship.
Dannon Rhudy
potter@koyote.com
Tadeusz Westawic on thu 21 may 98
>
> ....Is this as bad as I think ....
>
> It does not seem inherently "bad" to me. There is nothing like
> looking at an actual work to judge it. Slides lie, and with
> computer enhancement they lie a LOT sometimes. The downside is
> that it is very costly to ship, unpack, reship.
>
> Dannon Rhudy
> potter@koyote.com
Hi Dannon,
Yeah, I guess I'm being sore over nothing. I am well aware of "Fairs"
and "Shows" requiring that candidates deliver samples of actual work.
Here in New Mexico candidates for the Stare Arts and Crafts Fair have to
deliver actual work to Albuquerque within a two-day window.
I think the term "competition" is being diluted here.
We all accept that at a "Fair" an artist is expected to offer an
inventory of ware for sale.
The term "Show" is a little less clear. I think it mostly means an
exhibit of selected works that may or may not be offered for sale. But
of course we have all seen the word "Show" used otherwise.
I use the term "Exhibit" pretty much synonymously with "Show".
Then of course we say "juried fair" or "juried show", and "regional
exhibition" or "state fair" or "county fair" to further describe the
thing. Then there may or may not be awards offered at these various
affairs.
When the term "Competition" is used, I get an entirely different sense
of things, after all it is a fete for prize money and needs to be on the
level. I usually see jury, juror's statements and ranking criteria.
Okay, I get a sense of evenhandedness or fairness of the competition. I
see that the thing will be as just as it can be.
There are a hundred practical considerations that detract from an ideal
of fairness. For example, a high-caliber juror may agree to judge only
the exhibit itself and not the entire field of applicants. And so on.
Anyway, I seem to remember that the major Japan "international" took
some heat over the juried from actual work issue. I can't imagine where
I was reading this, most likely the New York Times, maybe two years ago.
The results were statistically predictable: the greater percentage of
entries were from within the island nation host country and therefore
the greater percentage of the awards went to artist-residents of the
host country. The author of the article was bashing the organizers over
this and other results of the practice. I think another complaint was
the absence of major players from outside Japan.
Hey, maybe one day somebody makes a big mistake and thinks I know what
I'm talking about and asks me to be on the jury for an international.
I've got this feeling that the ideal for me would be to see the actual
work. I can imagine dealing with 3,000 pots to make-up a final exhibit
of say, 500. I don't even want to think about viewing 3,000 slides,
maybe this was the only consideration for the Japan internationals. Does
anyone know?
I guess I really wanted to provoke thoughtful comments from people in
the group (like yourself) who are more familiar with the practicalities
and horrors of large show organisation.
Tadzu
terryh on fri 22 may 98
------------------
haven't we ever heard of =22world series=22 and
=22world champion=22 of beaseball? ever wondered if
any tibettan team or vatican team is invited to make
the series =22world=22-ly? if american may use =22world=22,
then why not some japanese create =22international
competition=22. maybe, we wouldn't be so upset if it
were called =22world competition=22 instead.
but, to be serious, any event may calls itself
=22international=22 if there is at least one foreign entry,
and =22world=22 if there isn't any. isn't this true?
we'll have a student show opening tonite at glassel.
the show is open for about 3 weeks.
and, i'm planning to saw-dust fire this weekend.
terry hagiwara
e-mail: thagiwara=40halnet.com (W)=3B terryh=40pdq.net (H)
web: http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/Cafe/3755
| |
|
