[John Zeissig]

Almost all the juried competitions I've ever entered or helped administer have been judged on the basis of slides. Invariably, the labeling format for the slides requires that the submitting artist indicate the front/top, either by a dot or in writing. This is intended to circumvent the potential upside-down error at the time of judging. Nevertheless, I've witnessed more than one occasion when the artist him/herself got the slide labeled incorrectly, as it later developed. It is also not unheard of for the work to be received as a plain stretched canvas, contrary to "ready to hang" instructions. I have no doubt that things have been judged/hung in the wrong orientation from time to time.

I concur with Jim that there is no "conspiracy" in judging art competitions/shows (except for limiting who is eligible to compete, a different issue). Actually, things might be a little easier to figure out if there were. The real problem is that the process is usually totally opaque to the artist. Whether a work is accepted or rejected, it would be highly unusual for a submitting artist to get any further explanation whatsoever about why either happened. You would certainly never get anything like the kind of feedback you can get on a forum like this.

I can't resist another anecdote because Enzie's story really cracked me up. I once entered two works in a large competition. The prospectus called for the usual submission by slides only. I was entering two complex art "machines", if you will, that involved light, sound, mechanical motion, electronics etc.; all done to an extreme degree of craftsmanship. I contacted the sponsoring organization and asked if it would be possible to submit video documentation rather than slides, as the latter couldn't really convey the nature of the work. They assured me that it would be no problem and encouraged me to enter.

Neither work was accepted. I thought, "oh well", and forgot about it. Like I said, these things are a crapshoot. But in this case the Executive Director of the sponsoring organization happened to know me because of contacts formed when I was curating shows. Some time after the show we ran into each other and he said he just had to tell me about why neither of my pieces was accepted. I said that wasn't necessary, but he insisted that I ought to know.

He was present during the judging. Although the names of the contestants were hidden from the jury, he knew my work as soon as he saw it. The three artists composing the jury, despite being told earlier that the video was documentation, and despite on-screen text labeling it as such, proceeded to take the video as the work itself. I mean, they thought I was submitting video art. When the director saw what was happening, he intervened to explain that the video was just the documentation, like the slides for the other entries. This was greeted by a puzzled silence. He went on to try to explain further, feeling more and more like a comedian whose joke has bombed, but unable to restrain himself from trying to explain why it was funny. The net result was embarrassment all around and, needless to say, the pieces were rejected. But he felt bad because he was pretty sure that if he'd just kept his mouth shut they were going to accept the documentation as video art! I asked him how much the jurors had received as an honorarium and he told me $750 each.

BABOONS!!!!