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| Greetings to the Participants of the Competition! Alise Tīfentāle, Art Critic A brief look at the origins of art competitions and awards, and the current situation | |
| Articles on contemporary artists almost always start out with a brief list of awards and accomplishments: included among these are competition wins, prizes that have been awarded regardless of the artist's own initiative, as well as enumerations of the most prestigious art biennales to which the artist has been invited, and the most notable solo exhibitions. This launching board of awards and recognition is like a letter of indemnity, a substantiating document which attests that this particular artist is worthy of the reader's attention, that his/her work, whatever it may be in itself, is of a certain level and "good" in all senses of the word (aesthetically, ethically, contentually, formally etc.), and that it would be absolutely pointless and silly to doubt its "goodness". Because - who would want to read about an artist who, for example, lives somewhere in the outskirts of the world, does not participate in biennales and does not actively pursue solo exhibitions, hasn't received any respectable awards and, therefore, has not been appreciated by an "international panel of experts"? The artist's work, "what-ever it may be in itself", is of no interest to anyone, at least during the lifetime of the artist. After the death of such an "obscure" artist, however, his or her "obscurity" (determined, say, by the artist's unsocial lifestyle, or simply the human modesty and shyness, or any number of other factors) miraculously gives rise to a legend (as in the case of Ādolfs Zārdiņš, for example); the works that no-one had ever wanted then become collector pieces and attract both financial invest-ments and the intellectual potential of art scholars. Fascinating, isn't it?
An artist, in effect, has two options - either to be an active competitor during his or her lifetime, trying to take part in every possible event, showing initiative and trying to catch the fancy of at least one of those "international panels of experts", or to consciously conceal their creative activities, not even trying to meet an influential curator or take part in a biennale or a competition, and basically live in poverty and misery, armed with the cheering thought that their heirs will some-day perhaps gain something from the sale of his or her newly discovered and by then legendary artwork. As this kind of scenario is indeed rare, an exception rather than the norm, an artist effectively has only one reasonable path - and it leads to a competition! | |
 Medals from the Amsterdam International Exposition of 1883. Available for bidding in an online auction on eBay - tree medals with the starting price of 60 pounds. Photo: www.ebay.com | |
| The Medal Era Competitions outside the world of sports is not a new concept - in the Iliad (9th-8th century B.C.) we find the motif of an apple "for the fairest", tossed onto the festive table by Eris, the goddess of strife. Skipping a few millennia and moving closer to the modern-day world, in the 19th century we see the rising popularity of various competitions in art (also poetry, literature etc.) with prizes for the winners, next to the establishment of the tradition of the grand "world fairs" in the middle of the century. The modern-day concept of the art fair is a direct descendant of the first Great Exhibition or World's Fair in London in 1851, in which achievements of industrial manufacture, visual arts and other notable and extraordinary curiosities were displayed alongside each other (for example, the Koh-i-Noor, the world's largest known diamond at the time, next to the newest advancements in the technologies of capturing a photographic image - the daguerreotype - and a mechanical vote-counting machine). Each of these world expos, gigantic and excessively spectacular for their time, awarded prizes to "the best" in various categories, and a similar practice was adopted by the art exhibitions which were popular in the latter half of the 19th century. In 1849 the Paris Salon, in existence since the mid-18th century, introduced medals for the the best works of art at the juried art exhibitions. Why a medal in particular? Historically medals have been used to distinguish military merit (awards resembling medals date back as far as the army of the Roman Empire) and honour the winners of sports competitions (bronze, silver and gold medals have been awarded since the 1904 Olympic Games in St. Louis, USA). In that particular era it was customary to create commemorative medals for various events (anniversaries of monarchs, royal visits to cities, extensive public celebrations of historical events and other worthy occasions). The process of judging art gradually brought some semblance of democracy to the otherwise quite elitist world of visual art - a competition seemingly gives equal chances to all its participants, and "the best" are chosen by experts. In addition, there is often an alternative prize in the shape of a "public vote" award, which always highlights the difference (or, to be more exact, gap or even abyss) between the opinions of experts and those of the general public. However, oblivion can often engulf both expert- and public-favoured art. For example, at the first Venice Biennale in 1895, which was then not yet called a biennale, the organisers awarded first prize to two artists - Giovanni Segantini, a then-popular Symbolist and painter of the Alps (who had previously received gold medals at the Amsterdam exhibition in 18831, Paris exhibition in 18892 and Turin exhibition in 1892), and painter and photographer Francesco Paolo Michetti; while the admiration of the public settled on a work which was pronounced scandalous - a painting titled The Last Meeting (beautiful nude maidens gathered around a corpse in a coffin - the dead Don Juan) by Giacomo Grosso, a well-known artist and professor at the Turin Academy. Perhaps the vaguely erotic subject of the painting and the roused interest of the public ensured a demand for Grosso's work, but these days this once-celebrated painting can only be seen in reproductions of sketches3 (after its triumph in Venice the painting was purchased by an American company and perished in a fire aboard a ship whilst crossing the ocean on the way to the USA4). What can we glean from this anecdote from more than 100 years ago? First of all, neither Grosso's, nor Michetti's, nor Segantini's prize-winning works are part of the golden treasury of world art. Secondly, the once so valuable medals of the international exhibitions are now sold on eBay and at antiques shops for a couple dozen lats. Thirdly, many were sceptical about judging artwork at a competition and awarding medals to the winners, already at the time when this tradition was born. For example, in 1884 artists Odilon Redon, Georges Seurat, Paul Signac and others formed the Society of Independent Artists5 in Paris to present their works independently of the Salon. Their motto was "No jury, no award" ("Sans jury ni ré-compense"), and they established a practice of annual exhibitions. Thanks to this society, audiences were able to see many of the late 19th and early 20th century works of art which are so greatly appreciated today (from Van Gogh to Malevich, from Henri Rousseau to Georges Braque, etc.). The Blank Spot A completely different and still little-explored area is the prizes and competitions in Latvian art, where many discoveries and facts await art scholars, even if they should limit themselves to the 20th century only. After all, these competitions have awarded not only honorary titles, which have now disappeared into oblivion, and material wealth; but they have also paved the way to commissions of public importance, including monuments and architectural objects (for example, a competition determined the artist who was to be entrusted with designing the first coat of arms of the Republic of Latvia: "The competition for the first state coat of arms, with entries by Ansis Cīrulis, Valdemārs Tone, Konrāds Ubāns and Burkards Dzenis, concluded on 6 December [1918] when a decision was made in favour of the so-called sun design by Dzenis - an emblematic composition of a rising sun with three stars."6). A subject worth studying in depth is art that received the highest awards of the Soviet era, as well as the significance of these works in the context of the contemporary view of art history. Prizes have a very special status in totalitarian regimes: like all spheres of human activity, art and any other expression of creativity has to conform to a particular controlled structure, which entails a certain system of rewards and prizes in accordance with the author's direct or indirect contribution to the glorification of the regime - at least in theory. In some cases, however, these prizes are not considered to be a stain on the reputation of their recipients, even after the collapse and discreditation of the regime in question (for example, no-one considers automotive engineer Ferdinand Porsche a Nazi, although in 1937 he received the German National Prize for Art and Science7, which was established by Hitler; likewise, among the laureates of the Stalin Prize in Arts are Sergei Eisenstein, Dmitri Shostakovich, Mstislav Rostropovich and other personalities that are still highly respected today). Taking a look at Latvian art life during the era of German occupation, art historian Jānis Kalnačs concludes: "Without a doubt, the awards of the Culture Foundation were be-stowed on works of art which had no national socialist influences in either content or form, and these works were judged on professional, not ideological merit."8 The culture policies, creative work evaluation and labyrinths of prizegiving in the Soviet regime are examined by Sergejs Kruks in his recently published investigation: "Composer Marģeris Zariņš, Chairman of the Board of the Latvian Soviet Composers' Union composed his opera ‘Towards New Shores" to a libretto written by poet Fricis Rokpelnis, Director of the Council for the Arts of the Ministry of Culture, and inspired by the novel of the same title by writer Vilis Lācis, Chairman of the Council of the Ministers of the Latvian SSR. The efforts of the three authors were rewarded according to their status: the Stalin Prize for the writer, the State Prize of the Latvian SSR for the composer, a fee and the title of the Meritorious Artist of the Latvian SSR for the poet." 9 The Money Era These days, however, the most desired reward seems to be money, and the chance to get even more money - that is, international and prestigious publicity which ensures the popularity of the recipient of the prize and the increasing demand for his/her work (irrespectively of what critics and journalists are saying of these very works). This is not to say that all modern-day artists are exclusively money-motivated - it is just that no respectable competition offers medals and honorary titles. Among the largest prizes a winner can receive are: - $200 000 plus publicity, plus broad exposure at the Art Dubai art fair - the Abraaj Capital Art Prize for artists from the Middle East, North Africa and South Asia region (United Arab Emirates); - $100 000 plus a solo exhibition at the Whitney Museum - the Melva Bucksbaum Award for a participant of the Whitney Biennial (USA); - £40 000 at the Artes Mundi international competition (Great Britain); - £30 000 plus international publicity - the Deutsche Börse Inter-national Photography Prize (Great Britain); - $70 000 Sobey Art Award for a young Canadian artist; - €40 000 Kandinsky Prize for a Russian artist; - £25 000 plus broad publicity in the Western art press - the Turner Prize for a British artist (Great Britain); - prestigious Ars Fennica prize of €34 000; - £15 000 Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Prize of the National Portrait Gallery (Great Britain); - €12 000 plus publicity - the international BMW Paris Photo Prize (France); - €10 000 international Prix Ars Electronica prize for digital media art in several categories (Austria). It is debatable whether or not it is appropriate to apply a model of a sports competition to art events, and the truth must lie somewhere in the middle. Competitions and prizes undeniably guide and promote various processes, and that must also remain the case regarding art. At the same time, certain contradictions exist in the very foundation of the matter - how can the idea of art (individual creative work) be reconciled with the idea of competing (sports activity)? However "independent" and competent any given "international panel of experts" may be, behind this signboard of magical solemnity and scientific authority we have living human beings (not photo finish equipment, digital sensors or other technical aids which are used to determine the winners of sports events with quite impressive precision), and the judgement of these human beings cannot be objective and dispassionate. Even professionals of the highest calibre have their own subjective tastes and interests, their own convictions and perceptions of the essential purpose and role of contemporary art etc. - one can only imagine the scale of intrigue surrounding such seemingly authoritative and globally respected awards as the Nobel Prize or the perennial Oscars of the American Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences). For that reason each art competition acquires certain qualities of a lucky draw (or lottery). No photo finish - no objectivity. And what kind of objectivity could there ever be? How could you compare all the works of art nominated for the Purvītis Award, for example, and award the prize to one that is "best" in some regard? Of course, none of the works nominated for any art competition have arrived at the finish line first, lifted the largest weight or knocked down an opponent in some fantastical art competition. Experts behind closed doors try to compare the potential significance of each work in the local or global art scene, perhaps list all previous achievements of each work (or its author), measure the level of innovation (provocation, avantgardism or reactionarism etc. - depending on the specifics of the particular competition), determine the technical skill of various authors in different media and techniques, and establish the extent of inspiration, divine spark, or whatever other name that supernatural component may go by. It is probably not an easy thing to do, but the prize has to go to someone. Is the result - the awarding of the prize to a particular work or artist - in any way an indication of the quality of the work or the genius of the artist? Is the fact of having received a prize a sign of "being good"? Undeniably, a work that has been awarded a prize is more popular than many similar works that have been left "below the cut-off line"; it is noticed by professionals of the field and has much more of a chance of ending up in a prestigious art collection, but its author - of being invited to prestigious exhibitions and biennales. Is the volume of exhibitions, reviews and reproductions an indication of the "goodness" of a work of art? /Translator into English: Līva Ozola/ | |
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