After processing and preparing all the entries, we, the arts team, have been displaying everything floor to ceiling, in the hallways and stairwells, for the judges to come and decide winners.
As these snaps show, the Koestler employs somewhat of a salon hang, with no spaces in between, and in fact overlapped. The overall effect is fascinating and not as disadvantageous as one might think to certain works. Everything gets to speak in its own voice.
As the images also show, there is not space to hang everything. The rooms and hallways are divided into different media, and if the room for drawings is full, then the rest will just be racked or spread on the floor.
There is supposed to be a main judging day, but in reality it is spread over a couple of weeks to fit in to when judges are free - as a result I missed meeting Jeremy Paxman, and also Grayson Perry who turned up on a day no one expected him. However, I have met several other judges, and assisted them in their judging. This means initially negotiating the amount of entries, marking those they wish to remember, and trying to see everything.
The works stacked in racks are definitely disadvantaged compared to those displayed - it is hard to keep them in mind. As if I didn't already know it - the judging process is highly subjective and quite random. Judges are free to award those they like, sometimes for spurious reasons.
The ranking of winners is a process of elimination, which with my particular judges, was very efficiently done. Again it is skill and time which is favoured, rather than economy of gesture, or pieces which are a little abstract. Conceptual does not come into it in any way. While we are working at Koestler, we all speculate alot about what we may produce if ever we found ourselves in jail. Current art practice really does not count. You certainly need to choose something that would take alot of time - sewing or oil painting or a large detailed drawing. And you would have to be very resourceful and modest in your materials. There is a great tradition of matchstick model making.
I spent a day at Koestler fixing items which had broken. One of the team next to me spend some time attempting to reconstruct a little vehicle made of matchsticks, but it was really so smashed that is was like presenting someone with a large box of matches and asking them to make a kit model without instructions. If a thing has been broken it is usually because there is a weakness in the making, and it is not really handleable, let alone sendable. We have not much more than superglue at hand. I spent a couple of hours recreating a spider made from the softest and crumbliest clay, and affixing it onto the side of a chair sculpture with strands of packaging string. I had to improvise and reinvent, but everyone is very keen to give each entry a fair chance of getting a prize or a place in the exhibition, because we all know what it means to the prisoners.
There are plenty of pieces which are laughable, and of course there is a certain gallows humour about being surrounded by them all day. One especially remarkable piece which attracts alot of comment is a very exquisitely produced pencil drawing of Adolf Hitler. It portrays him gazing yonderly into a glorious distance, and wearing a v-necked tshirt, his hair a little tousled. Gay Hitler. But it is obviously sincere and completely unironic.
There are also other considerations in judging - we try to make sure that every institution who submitted work receives at least something. There are special awards for first time entrants, young people and secure patients. Once the judges have more or less decided winners, in my case I was given the casting vote a few times to decide, they are again processed and the grand labour of feedback begins.
How challenging it is to write something about each piece. I have read a report on the prisoner's feedback from last years award. Any feedback or comment is appreciated, but most really wanted something constructive, something they could work on and consider - I think also it shows that someone somewhere really looked at their piece. The artworks range from technically proficient to scribbles, and everything in between. The job is to really consider each piece and find what there is there, to sum up what they have done, to compare it or relate it to something else they might consider, to suggest a technique or idea, and to be as encouraging as possible. And all within a few minutes.
You can't be patronising, nor can you assume any knowledge of art, or in fact anything. I suppose you've got to meet the piece on its own terms - a wishful drawing of a breasty imagined woman, or a cartoon with a weak punchline, a scrawl a child would make produced by a grown person - each must be treated seriously, equally, and given as much consideration as the impressive painting which is easier to comment on.
However, writing the feedback is probably the part I am most drawn to - it's inventive and challenging and rewarding and interesting. The book reviewing and art assessing turn out not to be random things that I do, but are part of how I see things, and in the end, what I have chosen. While at a gallery in my art assessing role for the Arts Council recently, I got into an interesting conversation with a curator about lots of things. We knew some people in common, and talked of art things and video art concerns. However, he asked me why I do the assessing job at all. It was hard to answer, because most people don't ask me that, most people know exactly why I do that job. Reasons - it's a job - I get paid to go to exhibitions - I get to see art I wouldn't otherwise travel to - it develops my critical faculties - it's got a certain kudos - it's arts related - I get to make contacts....and more. Why? Why? Why not!
Each year a different set of people are invited to choose and curate pieces for the public exhibition. This does not coincide with any which may have won awards. Last year the curators were victims of crime, this year they will be magistrates. As can be imagined, these choices are utterly informed by specific agendas in various forms, resulting in entirely different exhibitions possible from the same works. It is a stark reminder again of Koestler as a microcosm of the artworld in general, where such decisions are played out in another scale, another arena. In the end there is no formula, and these things come down to personal choice. Some consolation perhaps, whilst submitting proposals for commissions and exhibition.
4th July 2011
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