Any artist will tell you that probably the most difficult part of being an artist is coping with the rejection of one’s work. This is a situation in which I find myself today, having submitted a piece of inclusion in the Bradford Open Biennale. I thought it was one of my better pieces, and others who have seen it agree: and yet it was not accepted.
We tell ourselves all kinds of stories to rationalise this kind of situation. The most common, and perhaps the most comforting, is the belief that perhaps the selectors were looking for particular kinds of things, and your piece simply didn’t fit into their pre-conceived set of criteria. It is a very helpful notion, but of course there is no way of verifying its truth. The evaluation of art is indeed, in substantial measure, a subjective matter. That observation can only serve in part to diminish the sense of injustice that follows rejection.
I am well aware that other areas of life confront people with the experience of rejection. Commercial enterprises bidding for contracts face this too, and it can only partly diminish the disappointment if one’s own bid is clearly undercut on price. The thing that I believe makes the rejection of art work more difficult to handle, however, is the extent to which the artist is personally identified with the work. If a painting is not accepted for exhibition it is not only the painting that is disparaged, but the artist.
Still: we pick ourselves up, wipe off the dust, and try again.