Washington Project for the Arts (WPA) is inviting artwork submissions for its 38th annual Auction Gala exhibition. The event will be held on May 4, 2019 in Washington, DC. All submissions will be reviewed by the Art Committee and selected artists will be invited to participate with between one and five artworks. WPA splits sales proceeds 50-50 with the artists. There is no fee to submit your work.
Please read the following eligibility & selection requirements carefully.
ABOUT THE AUCTION GALA
The WPA Auction Gala raises money for WPA’s artist-driven exhibitions, programs, and projects. More than two hundred artworks are sold by silent auction to more than 500 DC-area art collectors, patrons, enthusiasts, and artists. Exhibiting artists are also provided two complimentary tickets to attend the event, which includes complimentary cocktails, delicious food, dessert, and dancing.
ELIGIBILITY & SELECTION REQUIREMENTS
We welcome submissions from artists with artworks that meet the following conditions:
All professional artists living between New York City, Philadelphia, and Richmond making work that is experimental and/or pushes at the boundaries of traditional practice are eligible to submit
All forms of painting, drawing, photography, collage, printmaking (analog and digital), sculpture, and three-dimensional multiples are eligible. *No jewelry, crafts, video or sound art will be accepted at this time
Artists must have exhibited in an artist-run or alternative space, commercial or university gallery, or museum in the past three years
Artwork submitted must have been completed in the last three years. Graduate work is acceptable; undergraduate work is not
Submitted artworks must have been completed since 2015 and cannot have been shown in previous WPA events/auctions
Artists must submit between three (3) and five (5) works
All images must be in jpeg format, sized to 5 X 7 (or approx.) inches at 300 dpi
All 2-D artwork submissions on paper, if accepted, must be framed and ready to hang with wiring in good condition (No saw- tooth hangers)
ART COMMITTEE
Michelle Grabner is an artist, writer, and curator and the Crown Family Professor of Art at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, where she has taught for twenty years. Grabner co-curated the 2014 Whitney Biennial and the 2016 Portland Biennial, and is the Artistic Director for the FRONT International – Cleveland Triennial for Contemporary Art. Her exhibition reviews are regularly published in X-tra and Artforum.
Rosario Güiraldes is the Assistant Curator at The Drawing Center in New York City. She has organized exhibitions and public programs at the Barcelona Museum of Contemporary Art (MACBA); University Museum of Contemporary Art (MUAC), Mexico City; The Drawing Center; Hessel Museum; Judd Foundation, all New York; and elsewhere. She holds a B.Arch from the Universidad de Buenos Aires and an MA in Curatorial Studies from the Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College.
Schwanda Rountree is an attorney, collector, and independent art consultant. She has been an Advisory Board Member of the Spelman College Museum of Fine Art, Atlanta; Executive Board Member of the Porter Colloquium on African American Art, Washington, DC; and Board Member of the Rush Arts Philanthropic Foundation, New York. She has also served as Contributing Writer for the International Review on African American Art.
Amy Sadao is the Daniel W. Dietrich II Director at the ICA Philadelphia. She was appointed to the position in 2012, and has since dramatically increased ICA’s budget and staffing, and directed an ambitious contemporary program extending equity to overlooked and underrepresented artists, ideas, and publics. Previously, she was the Executive Director of Visual AIDS in New York. She holds a BFA from The Cooper Union and a MA in Comparative Ethnic Studies from UC Berkeley and began her career as an intern at the Whitney Museum at Philip Morris.
Shinique Smith is a Los Angeles and New York-based painter and sculptor. She has exhibited in the Istanbul and Busan biennials as well as at The Brooklyn Museum of Art; Denver Art Museum; Los Angeles County Museum of Art; The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; New Museum; the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery; and elsewhere. She earned her BFA and MFA from Maryland Institute College of Art, where she served on the Board of Trustees from 2013 to 2016.
IMPORTANT DATES
Submissions Deadline: Sunday, January 13, 2019, 11:59pm
Notification of Acceptance: February 15, 2019
Local Artwork Drop Off: April 26-28, 2019
Auction Night: Saturday, May 4, 2019, 7pm – 11pm
Notification of Sale Begins: Tuesday, May 7, 2019
Local Artwork Pick Up: May 11-12, 2019
Mailing of Checks for Sold Works: By June 15, 2019
