Salon des Refusés

This post might well have been titled "Rejection, an Ode" (with apologies to S.T. Coleridge). I like showing my work in public from time to time, which means submitting entries to whatever suitable "open" exhibitions come up during the year which will accept digital images or photographs (too few, and a question of prejudice, frankly, a subject on which I have already vented) and are also neither too far away nor too demanding in terms of presentation. Inevitably, this means being prepared to deal with rejection, and to swallow the "wasted" costs of entry, framing, and travel.

These days, most open exhibitions hold an initial online submission round, which is obviously no problem at all for those of us working digitally, but must be a pain for painters and sculptors: getting a decent photograph of artwork is a skill in its own right, although as I discovered in the Holborne Museum in Bath recently, a good phone camera and a steady hand can do a pretty good job. From that first round a shortlist is produced, and artists are then requested to deliver their actual work, framed, labelled, and ready to hang, as per the (often very detailed) instructions. It's then a question of whether whoever is doing the "hang" likes what they see. I always get the impression that it's not so much the quality of the individual works, as such, that guides the final selection but more what will go with what, and what won't, especially if some submissions (e.g. from members of whatever society or organisation is doing the show) are guaranteed wall space.

It can seem more like an exercise in decorating a room than anything else. I mean, look at the way those pictures have been chosen to surround the enormous Anselm Kiefer canvas at the Royal Academy like a frame, below, or the way the others have been tiled into a dense floor to ceiling "salon hang". The lack of respect rather qualifies any sense of achievement, doesn't it?

Annoying as outright rejection in that initial round is, even more annoying is the experience of getting shortlisted, going to the trouble of framing and delivering your work, and then being rejected, which happens more often than I'd like. For example, the picture I took up to Bath last week didn't make it onto the wall. Why not? Well, I suppose I shouldn't presume my work looks as good to others as it does to me – de gustibus and all that – but, to be honest, I suspect that the widespread prejudice against digital work and photography often comes into play. Sure, we say we'll accept digital and photograph submissions, and like enough of what we see to shortlist it, but how many of those giclée things do we really want on our walls? I mean, are these people really artists, or just camera clickers and computer jockeys?

So I thought it would be nice to put together a gallery of some the digital collages I have submitted in recent times and had rejected, after the model of the classic Salon des Refusés. Welcome! Take your time, look around, and if anything takes your fancy I'm sure we can come to some sort of arrangement. OTOH, if nothing does, well, that might even be a tribute to your taste and discrimination.