After looking through Metalsmith magazine’s juried exhibition in print I came away disappointed. The exhibition entitled Saturated Color and Metal was juried by Jamie Bennett and Marilyn Da Silva. In the jurors statement Bennett and Silvia discuss how they arrived at the selected work and follow by giving a brief description of some pieces. I was rather surprised to find the descriptions lacking a strong investigation and it seems the work was chosen merely on surface value alone. This theory was enforced after reading the statement “While all the juried work had color, little was about color or demonstrated color as crucial to understanding the work’s meaning”, one would think this as strong criteria for being accepted in the exhibition, apparently not. The idea of surface value as criteria for selection is furthered by an absence of an artist statement/description to accompany work.
