Letters to the Editor
-
Judging art in a competition is always flawed
Lets imagine a reality show called Project Canvas. it starts with 16 painters and each week they have to make a new painting. Week 1: Virgin Mary made out of feces. Week 2: Hiroshima in watercolors. Week 3: Metaphor of lonliness. (You get the idea.) How exactly, at the end, would you judge the finally? Who wins in the end? The Van Gogh knock off? The Picasso knock off? Or the guy who does sculptures?
Whenever you have a competition and art is the factor the winner is decided by the tastes of the judges. This competition didn't tell us if Chloe is better than Santino or Daniel, it told us what the judges likes -- and you're shocked that they don't match yours. Hey, you know what, Crash wouldn't have won the best picture oscar either if so many academy voters didn't live in LA.
BTW, you should really read King Kaufman, he writes sports for Salon. He made some great points during the Olympics about how judging events (hello Ice Dancing) based on artistic merit will always be flawed. You could learn a lot about the problems of competitions by reading the sports pages.