Wednesday, February 24, 2010

The First Session

The First session of "Shut Up Already...I'll Look at Your Art!" took place today Feb. 24th 2010 at Winkleman Galley N.Y., NY. A participating project of #class, artists Jenifer Dalton's and William Powhida's exhibition in the form of a think tank at Winkleman Gallery. Art Dealer Edward Winkleman agreed to spend a portion of his time in the gallery during #class viewing images submitted by artist world wide who respond to an open call to submit one image of their art to be viewed by Mr. Winkleman for no less than ten seconds, a volunteer monitor assured that Mr. Winkleman viewed each work for at least ten seconds using a make shift hour glass to keep time, then witnessed Mr. Winlkeman sign a certificate documenting the image was viewed for at least ten seconds, then the monitor signed and dated the certificate then embossed it with an official seal of "Shut Up Already...I'll Look at Your Art!".

Mr. Winkleman spent far more than ten seconds on most images giving each a fair viewing often making comments or thinking out loud, occasionally having quick discussions with William Powhida who had come over from the #class "Workspace" for a quick view. In all Mr. Winkleman spent a little over an hour and viewed around 60 images.

The images viewed by Mr. Winkleman can be viewed on the "Shut Up Already...I'll Look at Your Art!" blog (well that's here, over there on the left) in a slideshow which displays each image for ten seconds. Each subsequent session will be posted.

8 comments:

Andre said...

I like the fact that the images are presented for 10 seconds at a time, sort of putting us, spectators, in the same spot as you, the reviewer(s). But I saw some images I actually quite liked. I would have loved to write a blog post about them, adding my own review of the work. But there is no easy way to do that, and furthermore no way to credit the artist, or link to his/ her website for more info.

This in my mind was always the most exciting and promising part of this event; For many artists the opportunity is not so much that you, Edward Winkleman, looks at the work, but the exposure we can get from participating in such an event.

I applauded this event when I heard of it; it is a great way to use the power of the internet to search for new talent, to challenge traditional notions of how 'the art world' should work. In one of the comments on the Edward's blog a commenter called this 'more of a "conceptual" (art) piece than a demonstration of any real interest in the art of unrepresented artists'. I thought that lacking confidence in the power of the internet to let interesting things float to the surface regardless of original intentions. I thought, and hoped, this project would bring unexpected consequences for some of the participating artists.

Because of the lack of info of the images this indeed turns out to be more about the event itself than about the actual art. A pity; if the information about the works and the images were made easily accessible this event would be turned not only to a showcase for the artists, but also an opportunity to extend the reviewing of these works to the thousands of visitors this blog probably has. This exercise would be less about mr Winkleman looking at art, and more about looking at art and, hopefully, about the art being looked at. And that includes some info per image and a way to credit the artist.

There is still enough time to make that happen.

Ian Aleksander Adams said...

Very close to my sentiments, Andre (I just posted a comment on Ed's blog to that effect). I'd really like to see some more work by a couple of these artists, but of course I don't know their names or where to find their stuff.

I do sincerely appreciate how the slide show forces those looking for their own image to also look at all the others, and to understand how long 10 seconds is, but I'm pretty realistic about how long the average net denizen will actually look at it - probably not the whole way through. I hope otherwise, of course.

In any respect, I'd love to see either a separate blog post for each image at the end or at least a run down of the artists and works submitted (with links so I can see more!)

I noticed a couple pieces I was familiar with, by Matt Gamber and David Strohl, but there were a lot more that were totally new to me, and several I really really enjoyed.

"Shut Up Already I'll Look at Your Art!" said...

Andre if you email me I will help you get more info.

and that goes to anyone else

shutupalreadyilllookatyourart@gmail.com


I agree with you

it is a great way to use the power of the internet to search for new talent, to challenge traditional notions of how 'the art world' should work.

that has been part of my intention right from the start.

unfortunately this happened really fast and I have squeezed about two months worth of work into the last two weeks organizing and setting everything up, and the details were up in the air and fell into place just days ago.

I am planning on getting more info and a more typical controllable slide show up after the last batch with artist info, but I would want to clear it with everyone who submitted work.

Thanks for all the feedback
and thanks to all the participants

Ian Aleksander Adams said...

Just a quick note, when you make the more controllable slideshow, hopefully the images are still in jpg format so we can drag em off to feature them online without having to screen shot, etc. Flash is just annoying, haha.

Anonymous said...

Just curious to know whether these 60 images were all that have been submitted up to this point. Wondering if an earlier effort to submit was successful or not.

"Shut Up Already I'll Look at Your Art!" said...

Anonymous,

Just curious to know whether these 60 images were all that have been submitted up to this point. Wondering if an earlier effort to submit was successful or not.

not at all, these are just the first batch Ed looked at during the first session, we finished another session today some of you might of tuned into the #class live video feed and caught some, I'll post more details later and the sideshow of the second session

there are many more

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