REJECTED!
The Brooklyn Museum vs. Salon des Refusés 2024
There is a wonderful aspect to being labeled a REJECT that celebrates and amplifies the word “versus”: a reject is coolly punk rock anti-establishment versus the elite insider snobdom of institutional credibility; a reject raises a fist in the air and shouts, “Who needs them?!” versus the clichéd sycophant whose unctuous, obsequious and servile attitude nauseates even a casual observer; a reject fights the power versus toeing the line.
And yet, in spite of all this punk rock anti-establishment posturing, the reject might have a textbook case of sour grapes, because the truth is, quite possibly, the reject wanted to be accepted in the first place.
Being rejected, in the artistic sense, typically indicates a direct exclusion, or a lack of acceptance, of an artist or artistic work, from a curation. Artists are no strangers to exclusivity, as sometimes a stance of exclusivity alone breeds the perception of value in art. For example, the same painting, when hung on the wall of a kitsch coffee shop versus the white wall of a blue chip gallery, could see tremendous shifts in critical, intellectual, cultural, and monetary valuation. Value can be relative and contextual, including via context that springs from imagination itself. It is from this context of imagination that lemons are lemonade, a shaving basin is a golden helmet, and a urinal is a significant notorious 20th century artwork titled “The Fountain”.
The social, fashion, intellectual, economic, and critical hierarchies artists face can be spotted at any art opening, when the person with whom you are speaking abandons you mid-sentence when someone more “important”, such as Martha Stewart, walks into the gallery. Lemony Snicket’s villain Esme Squalor, who harbors a vulgar fixation on what’s in or out of fashion, exemplifies the hierarchical attitudes of fashion that are art world adjacent. Are you in or are you out? Is your artwork in or is it out?
Artists are also no strangers to rejection. Most artists, if they are really serious about submitting their work, are rejected monthly, weekly, daily, and even by the nanosecond. This is to say that rejection is part of the regular process of being a practicing and exhibiting artist. By the time one has been in the game as a practicing artist for more than ten years, most rejections don’t sting at all — they truly become water off a duck’s back. It’s simply not practical to weep every time a rejection is received. Sure, on a bad day, a rejection can feel like being run through a threshing machine and then dipped in a vat of lemon juice, not lemonade. But for the most part, a serious artist simply nods and moves on upon being rejected, knowing from experience that future opportunities abound.
Acceptance can mean recognition which over time builds reputation, and it is from this that viable artistic careers and livelihoods can be built. An artist might imagine, after toiling in obscurity for years, that an acceptance into something beyond the mundane gallery, such as an exhibit at a major museum, might really mean SOMETHING. If a venerable, lauded art museum such as the Brooklyn Museum wanted to exhibit YOUR artwork — well, that might really be SOMETHING, a glowing bastion of major artistic credibility that might blossom exponentially. What could follow this golden laurel of being included in the Brooklyn Museum, one might imagine, could be a succession of fabulous opportunities, a one way ticket to membership into the pantheon of the world’s great artists, and you might, after all this time and rejection and hard work, be IN. You might finally be IN. But what would that really mean for an artist?
When the Brooklyn Museum issued an open call for an exhibit of Brooklyn artists in February of 2024, it was the dominant topic of discussion among the artists in Brooklyn until early April, when the submission period ended. “Are you submitting something to the museum?”, “What will you submit?”, “What if I get in?”, “What if MY work gets into the Brooklyn Museum?”, “I know I’ll get rejected!”, and “I hope we all get in!” were common statements at dinners, art openings, and at slop sinks at art studio complexes across Brooklyn.
When I considered all of my work and finally submitted the one allowed artwork to the Brooklyn Museum’s open call, the painting pictured here titled “How to Travel To Midnight”, I did notice that my submission was numbered 2117. “Hmm,” I thought, “does that refer to the number of submissions so far?”
It turns out that it probably did. According to Hyperallergic, the open call drew over 4,000 entries for 200 slots. Further still, the word on the street in Brooklyn is that 100 of those 200 slots were predetermined, meaning that only 100 submissions to the open call itself were included. What this meant is that most of the artists in Brooklyn who submitted work were rejected.
When the open call results came back, artist email chains were full of comments: “I was rejected!”, “Do you think anyone even looked at our work?”, “Did anyone get in?”, “Did ANYONE get in?”
The tsunami of rejection swept across Brooklyn. Did anyone get in?
At the art studio complex where I maintain a studio space, one artist out of 120 artists was accepted into the Brooklyn Museum exhibit. Just one. And, we are very proud that someone did get in!
What followed the tsunami of rejection was a revelation. Artists in Brooklyn realized that an exhibition of rejected works could and should be organized. Someone brought up the famous historic Salon des Refusés exhibition of rejected works held in 1863 as inspiration.
Much to the rejected artists’ delight, the Brooklyn Waterfront Artists Coalition (BWAC) had the same idea, along with an open and not yet scheduled space in their large and beautiful galleries. So, more than a century and a half later, the Salon des Refusés 2024 was born. No one was rejected from this exhibit — all any artist had to do was submit their rejection letter from the Brooklyn Museum, and the rejected artwork. So, if you were previously OUT, you were now IN.
What does all of this mean for an artist? When it comes down to it, whether accepted or rejected, the art itself is what matters most, along with the great pantheon of the entire Brooklyn artistic community, both IN and OUT of the museum.
BWAC’s Salon des Refusés 2024 exhibit opens Saturday, September 21, 2024, from 1 to 6 pm, and runs through October 13, 2024. Brooklyn Waterfront Artists Coalition is located at 481 Van Brunt St., in Red Hook in Brooklyn.
