A Pop Idol-style competition has been launched by well known art collector Charles Saatchi to find a new exhibitor at his latest gallery that will open its doors during autumn this year in London.
Anybody can submit images of their work to the website, where they will be judged by their peers in an giant online talent contest.
The Showdown initiative is an extension of the popular Your Gallery section on Saatchi’s website, that provided a platform for online submissions from artists around the world.
The website has received more than 50 million hits since going live earlier this month. Over the next six months thousands of art works will be voted down to twelve in a series of bi-weekly votes.
Visitors to the site can rate each art work on a scale of 1 - 10 and the winners of the 12 rounds will then compete against each another for the top prize.
The winner of the Showdown competition will receive GBP 1,000 and hanging space at the west London gallery when it opens in October. The runner-up will receive GBP 750.
The finalists of the first round - Laurie Lipton and Jason Galbut (image on the right) have already been selected. They will now go head-to-head over the next days during which time you can vote on their two artworks.
Images for the next round of Showdown are already being uploaded (over 3,500 images have been submitted so far) and you can continue to upload images for Round Two until Sunday 18 March. Voting on Round Two’s images will begin at 9am on Monday 19 March.
More information:
Showdown web site
Times Online article
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