Ex·hi·bi·tion

The Ex·hi·bi·tion is a recurring art contest that asks Long Beach artists to creatively respond to previous works, utilizing whatever mediums they prefer. Each season, the selected works from the previous season will serve as prompts for the next season, creating an ever-growing, interactive, multimedia space in which each work is saying something to, of, and with another.

Our intention is to thread artistic works together through time by providing a platform for local artists to respond to previously submitted work, prompting creative folks in our community to contribute their own voices to the ever-evolving chorus.

Definitely! Enjoy the conversations between the featured works, and start brainstorming about about how you’d like to add your voice to the chorus! Details on how to enter can be found at the bottom of this page.

If you have any questions, suggestions, ideas, or interpretative dances (seriously though), we’re here for it and here for you! Shoot us an e-mail at editors@forthe.org.

And thank you for visiting the Ex·hi·bi·tion!

We selected the four pieces presented on this page based on an evolving, democratic criteria. What emerged from the many conversations within our membership can be broken roughly into the following categories, presented here in no particular order:

Keep the conversation going: Conversations may start and stop naturally as we go on but, for this initial round, our priority was ensuring that each of our initial three prompts was responded to by at least one of the next season’s selections.

Diversity of voice: Maintaining a space that is inclusive of a wide range of identities, perspectives, experiences, and voices.

Diversity of medium: Publishing a variety of creative mediums, with an eye toward work that dissolves traditional boundaries and sparks conversation.

Artistic merit: Measuring the impact of the art on our hearts and minds; its adherence to the guidelines of the art contest; its imaginative or interpretive reach; its interesting connections to and breaks from the previous prompts; its quality as a work of art.

Bearing in mind our humble beginnings and our wide-eyed ambitions, we elected after much debate to slowly inch the Ex·hi·bi·tion forward by publishing only a few of the entries we received.

Because the Ex·hi·bi·tion necessitates a long-term dream and involves, at its core, an interplay of creativity and time, our selection process involved a rigorous series of discussions between all nine members of our staff, in which we argued, drank coffee, confounded ourselves and the contest and one another, drank more coffee, took breaks, slept, drank wine, came back, and wrestled again with ourselves, the entries, and the Ex·hi·bi·tion’s purpose and meaning.

Because this contest is also very new, we had to engage not just with the responses we received, but also with our own individual visions for what the Ex·hi·bi·tion is meant to be, and how to integrate and negotiate our visions with the collective whole. Owing to our democratic structure, we could not rely on the vision of any one member, but over the course of several weeks, and two particularly long discussions, had to decide with one another the Ex·hi·bi·tion’s impact and aesthetic.

The result itself is an ongoing conversation, a creative process forever in the process of being created. Just like the foundational three pieces we curated as the Ex·hi·bi·tion’s initial prompts, and the resulting selections of this newest round, our digital museum is itself an endless, collective imagining.

By providing a foundation of work for artists to respond to, our hope is that the Ex·hi·bi·tion will serve as an increasingly powerful prompt for Long Beach creators. Moving forward, an artist might find that in responding to a work from season two, they are also referencing a work from season one, and so on.

As the Ex·hi·bi·tion grows, the chorus will become even richer and more complex; the notes will each have their distinct contribution, but the sound altogether will be brimming with the echoes of how those contributions bounce and reflect, dance and intertwine, with one another. Each new incarnation of the Ex·hi·bi·tion will grant new harmony and new dissonance, further widening the sound while also strengthening the bonds between each respective note.

As we slowly integrate new seasons of the Ex·hi·bi·tion into our digital museum, we hope each one will illuminate new understandings between the works, the artists, the mediums, and the viewers, and that this will strengthen relationships in our community—or even create brand new relationships!