ViCA 2020 Open Call – Solo Show

Venice Institute of Contemporary Art

Entry Deadline: Apr. 1

1206 S. Maple Ave.
Los Angeles, CA 90015
PHONE 310-957-7037

https://www.veniceica.org/art1

Open Call – Portfolio Reviews
How Do Artists Survive? They Adapt

In the mid 1970’s, after lugging my portfolio around the art world for 5 years or so in search of exhibitions, I got my first solo show – in winter of 1981 – at a gallery on Wilshire Blvd. in midtown LA called Cameravision. It was a well known and respected place. They believed in showing artists who were collected by museums along with people like me – young, ambitious, dedicated, and hungry. I was extremely lucky and honored to show there.

But things were changing. Galleries had all the artists they could handle, and they had to focus on them. Sometimes they’d let you submit slides of your work, but the slides were expensive and time consuming to produce properly. As the digital age opened up things got worse. There were more artists, more exclusivity, less access. As I once wrote for the NY Times, artists flooded out of the colleges and into LA and NYC or wherever they could survive while the number of galleries stayed relatively stable.

With their rosters full of artists, the art business being extremely difficult as it is, galleries just could not justify the expense of the time it takes to offer even an opinion, much less the dread of having to say no. Renowned NY dealer and friend Andre Emmerich once told me in 1990 that “We don’t discover artists. Sometimes, artists or collectors will recommend, and on extremely rare occasions, we’ll take them on. We have enough work as it is. This is our life.” So, I took an alternate path as an artist. To this day I keep showing, but as an artist I understand what is important – you must make your art without regard to anything but the your vision. Since 2011, as part of ViCA, my perspective does not waver from these hard earned lessons.

Going Forward with ViCA And now, like ViCA, every gallery and museum across most of the globe has closed its doors until the coast is clear, to keep social distance/by appointment only. I know from experience how artists are coping, having to make decisions about their lives everyday. In moments like these art institutions such as ours need to embrace the changing world head on – and most importantly – continue helping artists survive, especially during challenging times. As Andre said, “It’s our life’s work”. So, we’re offering – for a very limited time – online Portfolio Reviews. I’ll be reviewing each submission carefully. Please do your research on our exhibition history and the artists we show. If you honestly feel you are a fit, feel free to submit here:

Individual artist submissions:
Open to all media – US/International
$45.00 for up to 15 images, video, audio, and alternative forms of media with CV/documentation. Please keep total video/audio clip length to 10 minutes.
Any submissions over 10mb should be sent via Wetransfer or other suitable online large file submission service. Please do not send via dropbox.
We’ll provide a short response/assessment of your body of work within 90 days, often sooner.
One artist selected from the Individual Artist submissions will be interviewed, have a studio visit and given a solo show at ViCA. Artist Selected/Date TBD within 2020.
Submit Here – when you get to the page, scroll down and you’ll see the button at the bottom of the Art page – Submissions: [email protected]

ViCA Update We’ve decided to accelerate our exhibition cycles, embrace virtual and online art viewing, and open up submission opportunities. Our exhibitions will go on via videos, virtual visits, new podcasts and social media. At ViCA we show the best work by important, renowned and sometimes overlooked artists from Southern California and across the globe. To go along with our current show “50 Years of Oil& Water – Gloriane Harris 1969-2019” upcoming solo shows include a comprehensive painting survey of Doug Edge, and shows featuring MB Boissonnault, Catherine Ruane, Robert Nelson, Michael Stearns and others. We are a space for artists, collectives, curators, patrons and audiences – both virtual and otherwise who will help embrace the change with us.  We’ll be offering all of our shows virtually online with a video tour of the exhibition with narration from our Founder/Director Juri Koll or guest curator, timed for release during the openings, and viewable online throughout the show.
Submissions/Appointments/inquiries:
[email protected] or 310-957-7037 or @veniceica on IG
Juri Koll

As part of ViCA, founded in 2011, Juri Koll curates and presents exhibits at its space in downtown LA and in museums, galleries and alternative spaces in the U.S. and abroad, such as the Chabot Museum in Rotterdam and the Neuer Kunstverein Aschaffenberg, Wilhelm Morgner Haus Museum in Germany, along with Southern California institutions such as the Long Beach Museum of Art Annex, the Museum of Art and History, the LA Art Show, Photo LA, OCCCA, Castelli Gallery, BG Gallery, TAG, LAAA Gallery 825, Muzeumm, Beyond Baroque Literary Art Center, and many other venues. He serves on the LA Advisory Board for Beyond Baroque Literary Arts Center.

Reviews of ViCA exhibitions have appeared in Artnet, the LA Times, The LA Weekly, WideWalls, Sirp and many other publications.
His documentaries on artists and other art world figures are available in university libraries across the U.S. His films have screened all over the world, in over 70 festivals, including Cannes, the Cork International Film Festival, the Australian International Film Festival, and won many awards. After graduating from California Institute of the Arts with majors in Fine Art and Film, Mr. Koll produced the first Art/World documentaries from 1990 – 1995. He worked with major curators in their museums and galleries, such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art, The National Gallery in Washington, D.C., the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and the Museum of Modern Art in San Francisco. His subjects included world famous and infamous artists and art world figures from the Renaissance period to the present. Recently, Juri’s first documentary, In The Steel: A Portrait of Mark di Suvero, (1991), was accepted into the Archives of American Art at the Smithsonian Institution. Koll regularly exhibits his paintings, photographs, and films.

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