ING Discerning Eye 2009 - call for entries

The Call for Entries for the 2009 ING Discerning Eye exhibition at the Mall Galleries has been issued. The exhibition is an opportunity for lesser known artists to hang alongside internationally known artists

Every year, in November, the The ING Discerning Eye Exhibition shows a number of small works which have been selected by an indendent panel of six prominent figures.

There are two artists, two collectors and two critics. The exhibition groups the works of each selector so that in six areas of the gallery, the works have a coherence in terms of what appeals to each selector. The work of very popular artists may pop up in two or more of these 'collections'.

How to enter

There are two ways to have your work exhibited

• either through submitting work via the open submission (see below for a summary). Last year 279 (49%) of the 572 works on display were from the open submission artists.
  
• or by being invited by show work by one of the selectors - an opportunity which is used very different ways by different selectors

This is the website of the Discerning Eye Competition and Exhibition. (For some reason the hyperlinks work - and then subsequently return errors(!) - so I'm going to give the full URL here http://www.discerningeye.org/_i/index.htm noting that there is an underscore before the letter 'i')

This art competition is administered by Parker Harris. On their website you can find more details about the exhibition and download the following:

• ING Discerning Eye Call for Entries Leaflet - provides detailed guidance
  
• ING Discerning Eye Entry Form - must accompany all submissions
  
• ING Discerning Eye Work Label - required and must be fixed to the back of all work submitted
  
• ING Discerning Eye Membership Form - There is a membership system for artists (costing £40 pa) whih includes free submission for up to 6 works. There's no guarantee of selection but the membership fee compares very favourably with the fees charged for submitting six works which will be £54.

The basics are as follows:

• drawings, paintings, sculptures and photographs are admissable
• all work must be submitted unpacked (ie no support for unpacking/packing)
  
• final deadline for receipt of entries in London: 5th September 2009. The guidance provides details of receiving dates for 15 towns and cities throughout the UK besides London. The earliest receiving date is 25 August.
  
• all works must be handmade and within the maximum size limit (20 inches including frame or plinth/stand)
• submission fees £9 per work
  
• all works will be included in the online catalogue - and artists have to supply a suitable digital image if selected
  
• up to 600 works could be on display. Based on last year, one might expect about 300 to be from the open entry
  
• all works must be for sale - and 40% is charged on all sales. Last year 180 (31%) of the 572 works sold and of these 52% were from open submission artists (who did a little better than invited artists).
• work not sold in the exhibition will remain on display in the online exhibition until 1st january 2010
• detailed guidance on requirements for frames
  
• unselected works to be collected 11-12 September
  
• unsold works to be collected 27th November

Selectors

This year’s selectors, who will chose from publicly submitted works and works from invited artists are as listed below. It's a very curious mix which should produce some interesting results.

Artists

• Lincoln Seligman (painter and sculptor) - an interesting choice as he is best known for his large scale works of art for modern buildings around the world
• Gus Cummins RA (painter);

I find that Gus Cummins, although a particularly individualist artist, exists in a space somewhere between the thinking of the surrealist painters and the experts of the magic realist painters.
Sir Roger de Grey

Collectors

• Peter Bowles (actor) - previously Lord of the Manor
  
• Laurence Llewelyn Bowen (interior designer and television and radio personality) - one might add that the website cuts a foppish dash too!

Critics

• Julius Bryant (Keeper of Word & Image Department at the Victoria & Albert Museum) and
  
• Jackie Wullschlager (writer and chief art critic for the Financial Times.

Prizes

[update - I forgot to mention the prizes yesterday!] There are a number of purchase prizes from the ING Purchase Prize which is worth £5,000 to the Humphreys Puchase Prize of £750. Further details are available in the leaflet.

There are also 8 prizes of £250 each for outstanding entries from (sic) "the national regions". I'm not quite sure how artists in Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland might feel about their countries being designated 'regions'! I worked for a number of years in different contexts with colleagues across the UK and Ireland and I remember it being drummed into me that one always has to avoid the word 'region' being used for any area which lies outside England!

Exhibition

Dates for the 2009 ING Discerning Eye Exhibition at the Mall Galleries in The Mall, London SW1 are as follows:

• opens to the public on Thursday 12 November 2009 at 10 am
  
• closes Sunday 22 November
  

Links to previous posts on Making A Mark about the ING Discerning Eye - which include images of previous exhibitions

• ING Discerning Eye at the Mall Galleries
• Who's been selected for the ING Discerning Eye 2008?
• Susan Angharad Williams exhibits at ING
• ING Discerning Eye 2008 - a review
• ING Discerning Eye 2008 - Prizewinners

Links:

• Art Competitions in the UK - resources for Artists
• The Discerning Eye
• Parker Harris - ING Discerning Eye
  
• Mall Galleries, The Mall, London SW1 12 - 22 November 2008 (10am to 5pm daily) Admission freees