apexart Open Calls

Open Call Student Jury Program

This program allows faculty and their classes to participate in determining apexart’s exhibition schedule for the following season. With live feedback for the teacher the students vote on a preset number of proposals and then get to discuss what constitutes a good submission and how and why they voted the way they did. (it takes less than 2 hours to read and rate 50 proposals). Syllabus suggestions are provided. If you would like to learn more or sign your class up contact lisa.vagnoni@apexart.org

I. HOW TO PARTICIPATE

II. CLASSROOM BENEFITS

III. WHAT WE PROVIDE

IV. APEXART | STUDENT JURYING

V. HOW TO VOTE / THE JURY PROCESS

VI. TOPICS FOR CLASSROOM DISCUSSION

How to Participate

Voting is done online for up to 4 weeks, at the students' schedule. Each student is given an individual login, through which they review a randomized set of proposals and rate each proposal on a scale of 1-5 or the same login to a group of students if they prefer to vote together as a team.

The two voting periods are the months of March and November.

All we need from you, the teacher, is a list of names and email addresses of participating students, a schedule for your class to finish voting, and the date you would like to receive your class’s tally page. You can send this list to lisa.vagnoni[at]apexart.org

At the end of classroom voting, please fill out our classroom voting participation survey to help us make this process better.

CLASSROOM BENEFITS

Students get the opportunity to read proposals from curators and artists from around the world and can consider what makes a compelling proposal. Submissions generally address many important concerns about social issues and ideas from all over the world and all corners of the creative community, learning which themes and ideas are pressing in real time.

To date, more than 100 classes from universities and art schools have participated, including The New School, Node Center for Curatorial Studies, Center for Curatorial Studies at Bard College, Brown University, de Appel Curatorial Program, Makere University, and MICA.

"I think most if not all of my students loved doing this. They felt like they were really getting involved in the contemporary art world and were doing something with real impact. It also exposed them to some very bad and very good art writing in a shorter form than in the typical readings I give them."
- William Kaizen, professor of Art History and Media Studies at Northeastern University

What we provide

Access to a live voting tally for teachers and personal login information and deadline reminders to each student. At the end of voting, we deactivate their login and provide you with a unique tally page that shows all the votes for your class. This is a grid (see example below) that displays the ratings given by each student, and every proposal submitted in the order of its current ranking by all jurors (not just your class) allowing for depthful discussion of the ideas, the form and the issues. This tally page provides the ability to view any proposal to allow the class to reread any together for discussion.

We send all login information and deadline reminders to students, as well as provide you with a unique tally page that shows all the votes for your class. This is a grid (see example below) that displays the ratings given by each student, and every proposal submitted in the order of its current ranking by all jurors (not just your class).

We ask you to only share this unique page with your class after all students have finished voting and their logins have been deactivated. This tally page provides the ability to view any proposal so that the class may read them together for discussion (see below for suggested topics) and expires one month after it is provided to the professor.

Classroom Guide

APEXART | STUDENT JURYING

apexart’s intention is to include students in the evaluation and selection process for our next exhibition season as an opportunity to affect a real world situation - our programming. Good ideas and criticism come from anywhere and anyone and our fellowships, exhibitions, events, and publications provide opportunity, cultural and intellectual diversity and stimulate public dialogue about contemporary art and ideas.

Open Call Exhibition Program

In 1998 apexart developed an annual open call that accepts proposals for group exhibitions from anyone in the world of any background. Still in place today, apexart receives hundreds of proposals each year, which are read by a jury of up to 700 people around the world who vote online and determine the three winning proposals, which then become part of the next apexart exhibition season.

Student Objectives

— engage in contemporary, critical curatorial practices.
— review exhibition proposals submitted from 70 countries.
— participate in a process that is typically closed to the public.
— gain broad exposure to global curatorial ideas and practices.
— develop a deeper understanding of their own curatorial values.
— learn about topical issues and how topical issues are being approached through art.

You can view the proposal submission form here. Below is a preview of the proposal submission form:

How to vote

For the NYC Open Call, voting opens November 5, 2024 and closes December 5, 2024
For the International Open Call, voting opens March 5, 2025 and closes April 5, 2025

All voting is done online, and does not have to be completed in one session.

Below is a preview of the way proposals are viewed by the jury:

Ratings are on a scale from 1-5.
5 is the highest. and 1 is the lowest score. Choose 5 if you really want to see the show and 1 if you don’t.

Topics for Classroom Discussion

To better link the proposals you read with their resulting exhibitions, you can view the previous NYC open call winning proposals, their online exhibitions and 3D scans, and essays below:

Suggested discussion questions:
1. Why is it important to have people from different or similar cultures jury submissions from other cultures?
2. How would you generalize or categorize the main themes you see in the proposals?
3. Do your peers ever discuss any of the ideas you’ve seen in a proposal among yourselves?
4. Which ideas have you thought of or are concerned about?
5. Why do you think a jury was drawn to the past winning projects?
6. Note three things that make a successful exhibition proposal.
7. What do you first notice when you go into a museum or an exhibition?
8. How do you feel about apexart using only a written idea to select visual exhibitions?
9. Proposals contain only written ideas and no images. How important was it to have descriptions of the artists and works vs. description of the idea? How did this change your perception and understanding of the exhibition? Can visual exhibitions be judged by ideas? In what ways do you see this idea-first method as effective?
10. Did you find proposals well written?
11. Did this process make you more interested in organizing an exhibition?
12. Is the idea clear and well-communicated?
13. Do you have a strong sense of what this project is about, and how it will materialize?
14. Does the writer of the proposal make a strong case for the relevancy of the topic?
15. What makes one stand out from the other? Writing ability, idea, descriptions of the work?
16. What would success mean for a curator in a show in which none of the artworks are for sale? What would success look like for a curator in our open call?
17. Some of our exhibitions are in dangerous and political countries and contain ideas that are controversial. They could be identity based or political. How much risk would you take to produce an exhibition?
18. Many proposals address regionally- or locally-specific issues. Did you feel you understood, related to, or distilled local issues from the proposals you read? Can you give an example about an issue you learned about?
19. Did you notice particular issues of concern addressed in specific countries or regions?
20. Consider your own art, exhibition or selection preferences. How would this inform the proposal you write?
21. Are there certain concepts and themes that you were drawn to?
22. Why did you give low scores?
23. What were some aesthetic strategies used to respond to a particular/specific idea? How did aesthetics and intent combine?
24. Was there a proposal you read that was particularly effective at introducing a new idea or concept to you? How was this idea introduced? What are good strategies for communicating new ideas?
25. Did you find that exhibitions with racial, gender, or religious themes were well-articulated and explained?
26. Based on the proposals you’ve read, what are 3 tips you’d follow or recommend to an applicant to consider when submitting a proposal, and 1 to avoid?
27. Have you participated in a jury before?
28. How did it feel to join a jury of 700 other people in selecting future apexart exhibitions?
29. What strengths and weaknesses do you see in this process?
30. Would you consider submitting an exhibition proposal to apexart in the future?
31. Did anything you read in a proposal make you rethink a previously held idea?