Positive / Negative Prospectus
The ETSU Department of Art & Design and Slocumb Galleries invites contemporary artists to submit entries for the Positive/Negative 38 National Juried Art Exhibition via Slideroom. This year's esteemed juror is Mark Scala, Chief Curator of the Frist Art Museum in Nashville, Tennessee.
The Positive/Negative 38 National Juried Exhibition will be held from February 13 to March 24, 2023 at the Slocumb Galleries. Deadline for submission of entries is December 21, 2022.
Submit via https://etsu.slideroom.com/#/permalink/program/70322/BkCuWqhnFK
The call for submission for Positive/Negative exhibitions is OPEN with NO theme; the juried exhibition serves as survey of diverse, creative, innovative and excellent examples of contemporary art. Works in 2D, 3D and video are eligible, artists must be 18 years old or older. Work must not exceed 48 inch in any direction and no heavier than 75 lbs.
The Juror shall select 38 artists and curate the accepted entries and winners, Juror's decision is final. There is a $500 Best of Show cash prize and several Honorable Mention; winners and artists who submit will be considered for future solo or curated exhibitions. Accepted artists will be responsible for shipping to and from the galleries; insurance coverage will be provided during exhibition. A full color catalogue will be printed and distributed to accepted artists.
About the Juror:
Mark Scala is the chief curator at the Frist Art Museum. His major exhibitions have focused on the subject of bodily vulnerability in the context of cultural transformation in global contemporary art. Chaos and Awe: Painting for the 21st Century (2018) was an international survey of artists who convey a sense of anxiety and sublimity arising from the contemplation of an increasingly unstable social imaginary. Phantom Bodies: The Human Aura in Art (2015) explored the subjects of physical absence, loss, and remembrance in contemporary art. Fairy Tales, Monsters, and the Genetic Imagination (2012) considered the theme of the hybrid body in folklore, science fiction, and genetic engineering. Paint Made Flesh (2009) featured expressionistic figure painting from the U.S., Germany, and Britain since World War II in which the experience of trauma, internal and external, is borne out in representations of the damaged body. Scala is currently working on the exhibition Matthew Ritchie: A Garden in the Flood, scheduled to open in November of 2022.
Scala has also organized exhibitions of the works of Diana Al-Hadid, Inka Essenhigh, Alicia Henry, Angelo Filomeno, Simen Johan, Ragnar Kjartansson, Osgemeos, Vesna Pavlovic, Jaume Plensa, Tokohiro Sato, Mary Sibande, Do-Ho Suh, Anna Maria Tavares, U-Ram Choe, Camille Utterback, and Guido van der Werve, among others.
Scala received his MA in art history/museum studies in 1988 and MFA in painting in 1979, both from Virginia Commonwealth University. Before coming to the Frist Art Museum in 2000, Scala was curator at the Art Museum of Western Virginia (1990-2000). From 2008-2013, he held the position of senior guest lecturer at Vanderbilt University, teaching the course Sources of Contemporary Art. He has been a critic for The New Art Examiner and has been interviewed by Huffington Post (see Lilia Ziamou, “Mark Scala: On Curating Thematic Exhibitions for the Body”) and NPR (see Susan Stanberg https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=105544892).
Scala has been a member of the Association of Art Museum Curators since 2001 and served on its board from 2010-2016.
For more information, please email contrera@etsu.edu