Who would have thought that it could be possible to make art competitive. That was the main reason I went along to SHMadness Art Battle in UCube this week – to see how that could be done. I was sorry I got there at the start time because it was an hour later that it kicked off and by that time I was looking aroud for a chair.
The battle involved 6 artists at a time painting a picture within 20 minutes watched by onlookers. Then after the allotted time, the audience scanned the QR projected on the wall and voted for whoever they thought had painted the best picture. The artists all liv in Shanghai but were from all over the world.
One Chinese girl decided the best way her to get votes was to take off most of her clothes and roll out her paint-covered artboard in her bikini. Although many people found it interesting, they didn’t fall for her gimmicky untalented piece of exhibitionism.
There were two rounds of competitive art and then a final with the best four. The two best artists were a man from Russia called Feat and an Ukranian girl who went on to win the competition and progress to the finals.
I’m still not convinced about whether art can be done competitivey successfully. Sometimes it takes a while to appreciate a piece of art, it grows on you. In this case, you have to make a quick decision based on initial impressions.
In any case it was nice to see so many people painting – not something you see every day and nice to mingle with the arty types for a change.