“Structure — the physical and conceptual supports underneath everything we do and create”
About the Call
The Cincinnati based non-profit arts organization and gallery, Manifest, invites visual artists and designers to submit original works about the physical and conceptual supports underneath everything we do and create—the evidence of structure.
We take for granted certain givens: that our bodies will move the way we ask them to, that roads will take us to where we need to go, that solid forms will remain constant. Experience and observation, however, reveal that these things are only reliable because they are underpinned by invisible design, development, and maintenance. Everything that must move, last, and live has a structure that supports it.
An artist's ability to dissect the world into its planes and angles is a kind of x-ray vision that lets us gather information we need to design something new. Applied elsewhere, our study can reveal the physical, economic, and social structures that support great weight. When we pay attention we can see the hierarchies to social interactions as well as the physical dynamics of movement along roads, rivers, and blood streams.
Like a bone, like a building's foundation, like a transit system, feats of architectural, agricultural, technological, and social engineering must be repaired and maintained to be depended upon. Social trust can be broken, and ecosystems thrown off balance leading to great change, and maybe to catastrophe. Our systems are living things requiring active engagement.
ARMATURE is a call for works about the skeletal systems that underpin everything: the sketches, blueprints, designs, the plans that must be sketched with forethought before a project can begin—the engineering of thought and form. It is a call for work about the physical and conceptual supports underneath everything we do and create. This show will be about the evidence of such structure.
To be clear, we are very much open to artists' interpretations of this theme. Works may themselves be structural, may depict or examine structure, or may explore the visible evidence, effects, or results of underlying structures.
Eligibility
ARMATURE is open to everyone internationally. The only limitation is that entries must represent original works which address the broad theme described above.
Media
Open to all traditional and non-traditional genre and media. Manifest's carefully assembled juries change from project to project, and have no collective predisposition towards any particular kind or style of art.
Size Limit
Manifest has no size restrictions on submissions other than what can fit in our spaces, on our walls, and through our door.
Date Restrictions
Manifest has no requirements on timeframe when submitted works must have been made. While most work submitted to our exhibits has been made within the past five years or so, sometimes older works are submitted and accepted.
Exhibiting Artist Honoraria
Each participating exhibitor will receive a $50 honorarium. The honorarium has no strings attached (other than full participation in the relevant exhibit). It may also be helpful as practical support for shipping, framing, delivery, or travel to attend the Manifest exhibit reception events.
$9,000 in Grand Jury Awards
The Grand Jury Award format results in the awarding of $1,000 to one work during each of Manifest's nine exhibition periods, including this one, for its 23rd season.
Entry Fee
$45 for up to three entries submitted. $5 per each additional entry. Fees are non-refundable. Number of entries is unlimited.
Jury and Curator
This exhibit will be juried by an anonymous several member panel of professional and academic advisors with a broad range of expertise relative to art and design. The jury will then pass along their recommendations to the exhibit curator who will make the final selections from the jury-approved pool.
Sale of Artwork
Artworks are not required to be for sale in order to be included in our exhibitions. It is required that works are indicated as either "for sale" or not for sale (NFS) on the submitted entry form. Manifest Gallery will retain a commission of 30% of the sale price on all artwork sold during the exhibition.