The Prizewinner

As regular readers of this blog would be aware I currently have work in the Bold Horizons National Contemporary Art Awards.

Not quite the snappy name one would like, and it still seems to be referred to by many as "The Waikato", though this is the first year with the new sponsor.

A month ago now was the opening. I was very excited to be able to catch Richard Lewer's I Must Learn To Like Myself, though somewhat disappointed with the show itself. Some works were great, and some left me unmoved.

But anyway, the 'real' purpose of the trip was to collect my $15,000. For some unexplained reason they gave it to some other dude.

I think this review got it pretty much right - except for the lack of comment about how awesome my work was.

Second year running the winner left me underwhelmed. Last year, while the concept was great the work itself had no presence. This year I just think it was rubbish, poor concept, poor realisation. I'm not sure what the point of making art that merely reminds us of the things we all know about (e.g. global warming) is. (Bad) Art as reportage. I'm sure there's room for actually taking a stance, and saying something, rallying the troops, tackling something less than global issues, I don't know ... being controversial!

Speaking of controversial. My work, which I thought may arouse discussion, doesn't appear to have. Judge Rachel Kent clearly ignored the title of the work, and didn't pay terribly close attention to the detail of the work. She thought it was some kind of very personal visual diary of a roadtrip, and that some of the works contained Maori motif.

While that's a reading I had never thought about, and it is a visual diary of numerous roadtrips in the way that any collation of photos is a visual diary, I'm sure that all the images contained Maori motif. And the title Belonging and Becoming - The Complete Original Works may have offered a clue to where I was coming from. But maybe it's just an Australian reading, not helped by the lack of guiding artist statement on my part.

Speaking of which, my favouriste artist statement was this one:

Clinton Cardozo, Untitled, [colour photograph], $2000 [Entrant # 968]
My photographic practice questions post-modern socio-cultural systems that have given birth to hybrid modes of thinking. The photograph brings to life these hybrid individuals.

Your photographic practice doesn't. And the photo is a boring contemporary cliche.