Subject: Re: Hello Confrancisco? 
Distribution: world
Organization: Keristor Systems
X-Mailer: Simple NEWS 1.90c (ka9q DIS 1.18, CC 1.18c)
Date: Sat, 12 Dec 1992 11:25:31 +0000

Disclaimer:  I have never run an art show or a con, but that I do have
several friends who are artists.  These opinions are my own, and do not
necessarily reflect those of any other fan or group of fen.  My
contribution follows:

In article <9ywJVB1w165w@lunacity.com> mwallis@lunacity.com writes:

>No arguement that mail-in art is more work than just pointing to a panel
>and telling someone to go to it. I do object, however, to the implication
>that it's "too much" of a hastle. Since when has ANY part of convention
>preperation or running been "simple". To exclude artists because they
>aren't able to attend smacks of the elitism that leads to shows that are
>"open" to "approved" artists and "accredited" individuals. Who is to
>determine the criteria for entry? What's to stop an art show director from
>deciding only their friends can enter?

Assumption: by 'mail-in' art you mean artwork from people who are not
attending, as opposed to artwork that is sent in ahead of time by those
who will attend.  If this assumption is false (i.e. you are referring to
those who will attend, but due to distance send their work in pre-con by
mail instead of bringing it) then I agree with you that the organizers
should *make* the time available.

To me, to include non-attending artists at the cost of a lower support
for those who do attend is even worse.  If an artist actually attends,
possibly from a long distance and at considerable expense, and then
finds that they only have a small space because of people who have sent
work in by mail, then they (the attending artist) have every right to be
very annoyed.  Most conventions have a limited space for art shows, and
(I gather) have more art than they can display.  In this case I would
say that attending artists get preference.  It has nothing to do with
'elitism'.

>When we start restricting access to "those who attend", we stop being
>open-minded, future-thinking fans and become closed-minded bureaucratic
>boors, in my humble opinion.

Why?  Other awards and benefits are only available to "those who
attend"...

To draw an analogy (yes, analogies can be suspect), look at costuming.
I think that most people would agree that only the people attending the
Masquerade get awards.  If most of the time in the Masqerade were taken
up by videos of people who didn't attend, those who did attend would get
very upset.  It's not considered 'elitist' to say that you must attend a
convention to receive a costuming award, so why should it be any
different for the art show?

Another point - if 'mail-in' artwork is treated exactly the same as
'attending' artwork, those artists who mainly attend conventions to
display will soon not bother and mail in their work too.  Thus you will
get the situation where you have an even higher proportion of mail-in,
with correspondingly more work for the organisers...

In summary, the restriction of artwork to attendees has nothing to do
with elitism or 'approved' artists, *unless* the attending membership
of the convention is so determined.  And if the committee were that
biased, you wouldn't expect them to be fair in other ways...

If the membership of the convention is open, and the art show is open to
all attendees, then the art show cannot be said to be 'elitist'.

As a person living in the UK, who cannot generally afford to go to
WorldCons (which are generally held in America), I could equally accuse
Americans of being 'elitist' in that I can't get a WorldCon Masquerade
award without attending...

Incidentally, what would be *your* criteria for limiting the size of the
art show?  Assume (for discussion) that you have 3 times as much art as
you have room to display, with a mixture of local/distant and
pro/known/unknown artists:

            Local       Distant     Total

Pro          10%          10%        20%

Known        20%          20%        40%

Unknown      20%          20%        40%

Total        50%          50%       100%

Local meaning in your usual organisation area (UK, for a UK national
con, or 'in state' for a state-based one) and distant meaning outside
('rest of the world' for a national con, 'out of state' for a
state-based one).

So have room to display all of your pro artists and half your
local-known ones, or all local known and pro artists, etc.  How would
you allocate the space?

Now take the same figures, but instead of Local and Distant put
Attending and Mail-in - what would your allocation be then?

Chris

***********************************************************************
*  chris@keris.demon.co.uk      *                                     *
*  chriscr@cix.compulink.co.uk  *  FIAWOL (Filking Is A Way Of Life)  *
*  100014.3217@compuserve.com   *                                     *
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