Got a couple minutes? Might as well check out the fine art at the Saatchi Gallery online. Heck, you can even vote for your favorite or upload your own art and compete for votes yourself.
This type of art gallery seems perfect for the younger generation. In today’s world where everything’s fast and at your fingertips (even judging art) the Saatchi Gallery is definitely filling a niche.
Right in there with Myspace, I suppose.
The real Saatchi Gallery is located in London, and has always focused on showing new, unknown artists to the world. In a recent effort to open up more opportunities for artists, Saatchi started an online competition which allows all artists worldwide to register and submit one work of art for a weekly Showdown. All submitted artwork is voted on by visitors to the website, and at the end of the week, the two highest rated works of art go head to head for another seven days to decide the winner.
There will be twelve weekly Showdowns, and then a final vote-off to see who the overall champion is. Read the full rules here.
There are both pros and cons to this whole competition. I think it’s great that it’s getting so much publicity and that people are becoming excited about art. The prize, if you win, is decent too: £1000 and your artwork displayed at Saatchi Gallery itself.
Just by entering your work you’ll get free exposure around the world. Take a look at this constantly updated visitor number they’ve been displaying on their home page.
OK, so as a website owner that reads a little bit cocky; but if you’re an artist you’ll definitely have a chance to sell something.
To be honest though, I’m not sure that the whole voting/popularity contest is the right way to go with fine art. Primarily because I’ve seen a lot of lobbying taking place among the artists, as they try to drum up votes among friends, family, and anywhere else they can find it.
I just don’t like that.
I also think that separating the artwork into categories would really help. As it is right now, sculptures, paintings, and drawings are all on the same playing field.
And it definitely bugs me that the image thumbnails have to be distorted in order to squeeze them into a square shape for the scrolling preview. Doesn’t that bother anyone else?
A website that does it better (and did it first) is ArtFaceoff, which I reviewed here on EmptyEasel several months ago. Too bad it hasn’t gained the popularity that the Saatchi Showdown has.
The Showdown is currently in Round Two out of twelve total, so you’ve still got plenty of time to join the action. Just follow these links to vote or submit your own artwork.