{"id":1162,"date":"2009-10-09T12:57:23","date_gmt":"2009-10-09T19:57:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/anotherbb\/wp\/2009\/10\/art_awards_-_down_the_rabbit_h\/"},"modified":"2009-10-09T12:57:23","modified_gmt":"2009-10-09T19:57:23","slug":"art_awards_-_down_the_rabbit_h","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/anotherbb\/2009\/10\/art_awards_-_down_the_rabbit_h.html","title":{"rendered":"Art Awards – down the rabbit hole"},"content":{"rendered":"

Previous post on related subject: Art Grants: Foolish peaks and absurd valleys<\/i><\/a>.<\/p>\n

In Seattle, PONCHO<\/a> has a great rep. Since its founding in 1963, it has raised $34 million for 200 or so arts organizations. In recent years, as part of a thank-you to artists contributing to its annual auction, PONCHO singles one out for an  “Artist of the Year Award,” chosen by vote from other artist participants. <\/p>\n

Although it’s an award given more for community service than aesthetic achievement, winners from previous years have tended to be a distinguished lot, including Jacob Lawrence & Gwen Knight<\/a>, Fay Jones<\/a> and Juan Alonso<\/a>.<\/p>\n

This year, artists say, PONCHO found another way to select the winner, other than peer vote. And this year<\/a>, the winner is Judith Kindler<\/a>, who happens to be on PONCHO”s board of trustees<\/a>. For me, her paintings belong in that category of visual nicety that dominates what’s on view in galleries around the country, but that’s not the point. <\/p>\n

The point is, PONCHO bypassed peer opinion to select a board member. Kindler might have won anyway, had artists voted, but she shouldn’t have been a candidate. She’s a board member. PONCHO relies on its reputation, and this kind of thing doesn’t help. <\/p>\n

Calls to PONCHO have not yet been returned. Will update with its response, if I get one.

Update: <\/b>Jeff Crandall<\/a>, who works on the annual auction, defended this year’s change of policy. <\/p>\n

“We had problems with artists asking their friends to vote for them,” he said. Instead, PONCHO asked a group of people who are not on the board to make the selection, which comes with a $5,000 prize. He said he couldn’t say who was on the selection committee because PONCHO didn’t want them to “get pressure.” <\/p>\n

This year, for the first time, there was a no-cash artists’ choice award that went to Rick Araluce<\/a>. Crandall also noted that Kindler is no longer on the board although she’s still listed as a member on PONCHO’s Web site . She left in September, after she was picked for the award, he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Previous post on related subject: Art Grants: Foolish peaks and absurd valleys. In Seattle, PONCHO has a great rep. Since its founding in 1963, it has raised $34 million for 200 or so arts organizations. In recent years, as part of a thank-you to artists contributing to its annual auction, PONCHO singles one out for […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-1162","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-uncategorized","7":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/anotherbb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1162","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/anotherbb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/anotherbb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/anotherbb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/anotherbb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1162"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/anotherbb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1162\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/anotherbb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1162"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/anotherbb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1162"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/anotherbb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1162"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}