Anti-Art-Contest Art Contest

Send-up New Mexico's 400th year and you could win a prize.

By Rani Molla

We at SFR love competitions (have you seen Best Of?) and we also love spoofs.

New Mexico Creates

and the

New Mexico Centennial Foundation

have put out a call for artists to make work inspired by the centennial.

We’re putting out our own call: Make fun of the centennial through art

there are prizes.---

We are already tired of the blithe and blind 16-month celebration of New Mexico 100 years as a state.

Help us get over our anniversary ennui with our Anti-Art-Contest Art Contest

. Our competition rules are below, but to get an idea of the real competition, we’ve quoted their

press release

:

'New Mexico-based artists and artisans are invited to submit proposals for special commemorative pieces for the upcoming statehood Centennial. A wide range of artistic media will be considered, including glassware, jewelry, basketry, pottery, and fiber arts (both wearable and decorative).  The work should be inspired by the New Mexico Centennial but will not include the Centennial logo, nor be souvenir or promotional in nature.' [Wait for it…]

…couple of lines later…

'The “New Mexico Creates/Centennial Commemorative Art” items will be sold at MNMFShops museum retail outlets in Santa Fe, and via the New Mexico Creates website, www.newmexicocreates.org.  Some artwork will be chosen for licensing and manufacture, with the approval and participation of the selected artists.' [In our book, this is exactly the definition of “souvenir or promotional.”]

We’ve concocted a far less patriotic/nationalist/statist/reverent competition.

Our Rules:

1.    Make art (any kind) that mocks, pokes fun at, eviscerates or satirizes the centennial or its art competition.

2.    Post an image of whatever you’ve created on the Santa Fe Reporter Facebook page's event page: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=152870941422562

3.    The image with the most “likes” wins and receives a $100 at Chocolate Maven. We will probably not choose your art for “licensing and manufacture.”

For more info on the other competition or, rather, to more thoroughly devise your send-up, go here

http://www.jmarshallplan.com/call-for-artists-new-mexico-creates-centennial-commemorative-art

. Submissions to SFR’s competition have till the end of November.

Santa Fe Reporter

Letters to the Editor

Mail letters to PO Box 4910 Santa Fe, NM 87502 or email them to editor[at]sfreporter.com. Letters (no more than 200 words) should refer to specific articles in the Reporter. Letters will be edited for space and clarity.

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