A new open call, another on line show, Why? Well we’ll go into all that later, for now here’s the details in terms of the actual open call

Cultivate presents Why? an on-line contemporary art exhibition during these rather fractured times of are we in lockdown or not (are we still in lockdown?), a group show that will once more hopefully be alive with painters, paintings, installation, and well… 

Deadline is end of day Monday 16th November 2020

Why? will be the 11th on-line show from Cultivate and we think the 158th Cultivate show since that Netll Market takeover back in the summer of 2011 (something like 158 anyway, we might have missed on or two).

Please do read this, it might save us all some time…

Why? will open on-line at 8pm on Tuesday November 24th via the Organ magazine website at www.organthing.com.  We will once again be personally inviting the majority of the artists, but as always the flow of artistic new blood is very important. There is an open call aspect, and we would like to have around a dozen artists we don’t actually know yet. Please do check out one of the the recent previous on-line shows here on the Organ website to get a flavour of what we do and what we’re looking for.

Theme? No, we don’t need a theme, just art that excites us enough to want to share it. Once again, as with the previous on-line shows this year, we are looking for exciting painters, installation artists, 3d artists. Why? is open to artists of all disciplines besides photography or digital art (nothing against either discipline and there are plenty of on-line outlets for both, this on-line show is not about digital art), and the one thing we really don’t want is a flat lifeless image of a painting, have a look at one of the the last shows, go grab a flavour and a feel, make your image feel like a piece of art hanging on a gallery wall.  We had a lot of what you might call polite illustration last time, please do check out the two of the recent on-line shows #43Artists and (Far from the) Turmoil, polite illustration is not really what we’re about.

If you wish to be considered then simply submit no more than five images  with titles and a link to your artist website. The minimum requirement for this on-line show is that you have a working, well maintained up-to-date artist website that we can link to so people can find out more about you – a working website mind you, not just a Facebook page or an instagram account that full of photos from your last birthday party or what you had for dinner today or heaven forbid one of those dreadful Saatchi pages, (an Instagram page that is only focused on your art or a Facebook Artist page is more than fine).

The call is open to anyone from anywhere on the planet. There are no fees or costs involved, we’re not paying anything in terms of gallery rents and such for this one so why would we even dream of charging our fellow artists just to open an email? Some galleries or curators or indeed artists might think the practice is okay and exploiting artists like that is fine but  we detest the practice.  Sure, there’s a fair bit of our time involved but hey, we don’t like galleries who charge for just opening an email and then claim it to be admin costs, why should anyone ever pay to submit to a show they’re might not even get to take part in?  All we ask from you, is that if you are selected that you put up links and pro-actively share details on your own websites and social media feeds (frankly if you don’t share the link and carry the news on your art pages then you won’t be asked back, I think that’s fair).

If you wish to submit to Why? then please do. Once you do we promise to get back within four or five working days (probably faster) with a yes or no, if it is a yes we’ll come back and ask for all the details we need). Deadline is end of day Monday 16th November 2020. Don’t be leaving it until the last minute though, you have more chance if you don’t leave it to the very last minute and the rush from everyone else…

Once again the show is being curated by the Cultivate team of Sean Worrall and Emma Harvey. We are first and foremost working artists. We opened Cultivate because we really didn’t like the often very cynical way most galleries were treating us artists,  we like to be treated the way you as artists expect to be treated. Cultivate is an artist-led thing, please leave any art school attitudes outside the front door. We are very much about letting people in but we are very very picky, if we say no, we will politely tell you why rather than just send you a standard rejection. If we say no, it is mostly a refection of our personal tastes – first, above all else, we need to feel what you do is right for this group show and that being part of the show is right for both you and us, some art really works in an on-line context, some art simply doesn’t… One more thing, we have noticed some people have a habit of submitting the same art as the art we rejected last time, please don’t.  Thanks for reading, we look forward to hearing from you.

Submissions via e,mail to info at cultivategallery dot com and clearly marked OPEN CALL  in the subject line please

thanks  Sean/Emma, Cultivate