Saturday 25 September 2021

Open show at the VAG


It's that time of year again, when hundreds of local artists queue up at the gallery, hoping to have their work selected for the (usually) annual Bath Society of Artists show. There will be many rejections this time by the look of it.

H.I. is a highly respected and well-established painter around here who has exhibited at the show on many occasions. She once even sat on the selection panel, but eventually stopped entering this exhibition for one reason or another.

The panel who choose consists of other artists or other qualified people, and usually includes a famous name. When Peter Blake lived in the area, he was always invited to sit with the others, as have other members of his funny little group who lived in an old railway station in a village a few miles out of town.

A few years ago, one of the organisers asked H.I. if she would enter something, but she declined. The organiser kept badgering her to submit a painting so eventually she queued up with the rest (actually it was me who queued up for her!), paid the subscription fee and entered it. They rejected it. She paid to be humiliated. It was a good thing that it was me who queued up with the others.

I have just seen two people struggling to carry in a full-sized bronze casting of a Great Dane dog with a monkey on its back. I know from experience that this piece of art must have cost in the region of £10,000 or more to be cast and patinated at a large art foundry, so no matter what the subscription fee is these days it will seem as nothing by comparison, but not being selected will hurt the more.

The general standard of entries varies quite drastically between good, bad and mediocre, but who am I to judge?

31 comments:

  1. I'm surprised they still get people to bring the work in for selection. The similar show here has been doing it by email submission for years. I once submitted a fox drawn in lipstick and the selection committee rang me and asked which way up was it to be viewed aa my image attachment was upside down. I said I wasn't fussed, however they liked it best. It was selected the right way up.

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    1. I don't think you can tell much from a photo. H.I.'s paintings are next to impossible to photograph without thousands of pounds worth of equipment. I suppose that you didn't care which way up the fox was means that ... actually I don't know what it means.

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    2. It's a level playing surface though. As for my fox, if they wanted to display it upside down that was fine by me. I liked it better upside down after that conversation.

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    3. Well, not really. Some drawings look a lot better in photos than they do in life, and H.I.'s paintings are so subtle that whole colours are lost in reproduction.

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  2. I guess there are many X factor moments in all of us

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  3. Reminded me of my dear first husband, Malcolm Rivron, who always exhibited at the Ilkley Art Exhibition (just a pleasant ride away down the Dale He always put six in, they were a;ways accepted and always sold. They paid for many a holiday!

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    1. Have you got any photos of them you could put up on your blog, Weave?

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    2. My neighbour painted in much the same style as your Husband from the one painting I saw on-line, a lot of his are around Manchester of very old buildings.

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    3. I haven't got a husband - yet.

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  4. Reminds me of an "Mapp & Lucia-episode", where Miss Mapp out of pure spite and in a cunning way (so nobody knew it was her) rejects the drawing of Georgie and Lucia. Of course in the end her misdeed came to the light...

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  5. For the artist, I would think displaying and/or selling art in a gallery would be more satisfying. The whole contest aspect of the exhibit turns me off.

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  6. When I glanced at the title of this post on my blog sidebar, the first words that jumped out at me were "open VAG" so thanks for getting my day off to a start with a VERY graphic image in my mind! Haha.

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    1. The director of the gallery is an innocent who may never have thought of that. Needless to say, it was the first thing I thought of.

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    2. It stands for Victoria Art Gallery, btw.

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    3. On seeing your subject line, unlike Jennifer, I thought you were going to reminisce about Volkswagen. VW in English? We Double You. The horror, Tom, the horror! One of each of us is enough.

      VAG, Milton Keynes, my very first (temporary) employer when I arrived in England. I barely noticed I'd left the motherland other than that everyone at VAG spoke English.

      U

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  7. One show we exhibited in required in person selection. That offended my sister so she would not present. I always did. Nothing ventured, nothing gained.

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    1. All the galleries have traditionally asked for that.

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  8. That brings back memories - I once had one of my works accepted!!! But what a faff - though in many ways literary competitions are little different, except there's no queuing

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