Call for Entires: Feminine / Masculine

Call for Entries

Feminine / Masculine

A juried international photography exhibition

January 12 – February 7, 2017

Submissions are now closed. Please return in a few days to see the photographs selected for this exhibition.

Portrayals of femininity and masculinity are, without doubt, central to a number of art forms, photography not being an exception. The past few decades have given rise to – often heated – discussions and criticisms of past, recent, and current photographic practices for their lack of reflection on the assumptions, stereotypes, and prejudices surrounding photographic approaches to femininity and masculinity. Fine art and commercial works alike have been critiqued for the potential consequences of their approach and presentation. Historically femininity and masculinity have been conceived, among others, as oppositions, as complements of each other, or as positions on a continuum. There are hardly any ways of portraying femininity and masculinity that would or could not be considered trivial, conservative, pretentious, demeaning, distasteful, clichéd or even offensive by some. It often seems that everything has been both said and photographed about this subject, and yet, it is not possible to ignore the persistence of the theme in our visual culture. What is it that we can still value and possibly revive from the rich history of photography; are there any novel ways left to approach this subject with a fresh critical eye?

PH21 Gallery invites photographers to submit their work for a group exhibition themed Feminine / Masculine. We are looking for submissions from all photographers who are interested in this subject and would like to share their work with a wider international audience through the exposure of PH21 Gallery. The theme is broadly construed, as the photographic portrayal of femininity and masculinity is independent of generic or stylistic constraints. Indeed, we are interested in all possible creative photographic interpretations of the theme.

One juror’s choice and up to three honourable mentions will be selected and announced. The juror’s choice receives three free entries for any upcoming themed group exhibition calls at PH21 Gallery. (Each free entry includes up to 15 images.) The webpage and the print catalogue of the exhibition will include a juror’s review; it provides a detailed review of the juror’s choice, shorter evaluations of the honourable mentions, and a one-sentence highlight of some of the other photographs included in the exhibition.

Juror: Zsolt Bátori

Zsolt Bátori is a philosopher of art and photographer, living in Budapest. He has taught philosophy of art and photography theory courses at various universities in Hungary, the United States, and Argentina, and has exhibited his photographic work internationally. Zsolt is also the founder and artistic director of PH21 Gallery.

View Zsolt's website.

Submission deadline: December 12, 2016

Notification: All entrants will be notified 7–10 days after the deadline.

Exhibition dates: January 12 – February 7, 2017

There are three submission options:

A) Standard submission: You may submit 3, 5, 7, 10, or 15 images; these may be all individual works, or they may also include a series of maximum 5 photographs. The entry fee is €15.00 for the first 3 images, €20.00 for 5 images, €25.00 for 7 images, €30.00 for 10 images, and €35.00 for 15 images.

B) Special fee: There is a special rate for maximum 5 images for students and unwaged persons as well as for applicants from low-income economies. The special fee is €8.00. Please do not ask us about your eligibility or send us any proof because we trust your judgement. The special rate is simply for people who – for the reasons indicated above – would not be able to afford the standard fee.

C) Young Talent Institutional Programme (YTIP): Photography organisations (associations, societies, etc.) and institutions (art departments, faculties and photography programmes at colleges and universities, academies of applied or fine arts, etc.) fostering the career advancement of young photographers may submit entries on behalf of their members/students through our Young Talent Institutional Programme (YTIP). A YTIP submission may consist of up to 25 images for a YTIP submission fee of €25.00. Organisations and institutions may choose their own internal procedure of selecting the photographers and the images submitted. As a result, the number of submissions may range from 25 images from one person to 25 images by 25 different photographers. Ideally, however, YTIP aims at something in between; we would like to receive 3-5 photographs from 5-8 photographers. The submitted images must be from photographers between 18 and 35 years of age. (Please do not send us any proof. By submitting entries through YTIP, the organisation or institution accepts the eligibility criteria of the programme.) Please include the list of photographers and the titles of their work in a separate Word document along with all the other information that is requested for standard submissions. As our website and submission procedure is in the process of being upgraded, the process will be much simplified in the near future.

Submission rules and guidelines:

The entry fee is not refundable.
This call for entries is competitive; entrants are not guaranteed inclusion in the exhibition by submitting an entry. Depending on the number and the quality of the entries received, the work of an entrant may or may not be curated into the show. The selection of the juror is final.
Please send in the entry fee first (see the payment option at the bottom of the page), and then submit your images by e-mail to submission@ph21gallery.com, indicating the theme of the exhibition in the subject line.
Images must follow the following format: 8 bit JPEG; Adobe RGB or sRGB; longest dimension maximum 1280 pixels (preferred width for landscape orientation: 1000 pixels; preferred height for portrait orientation: 775 pixels); 72 dpi; maximum 1 MB.
File names: lastname_title or lastname_title_number. File names of maximum 40 characters should only contain letters of the English alphabet and underscores. Titles may be shortened (please avoid very long file names), and they should be given without spaces in the file name. No spaces in the file names, please. (The image titled A Little Cottage in the Rain by Maria Martínez would have this file name: Martinez_LittleCottage.jpg; the third untitled image by Huan Lee: Lee_Untitled_3.jpg; the second photograph of the series "Surface" by Lena Petrovich: Petrovich_Surface_2.jpg)
In the body of your submission e-mail please include
- a) your name;
- b) your city and country (with state abbreviation if USA);
- c) your website address (if you have one);
- d) the exhibition theme;
- e) titles of all included photos with the corresponding file names (in case of a series, please number the photos of the series, and indicate the title of the series, if it has one);
- f) the actual or desired print size (in centimetres or inches) of each photograph.
All photographers 18 years or older worldwide may enter the competition by submitting their own, original work.
PH21 Gallery welcomes submissions from, and exhibits work of emerging and established photographers as well.
Photographs entered to this call do not have to be editioned. If accepted to the exhibition, it still remains the choice of the photographer to edition the work (e.g.: "ed. 10") or to leave the work uneditioned ("open ed.").
The exhibition copy (if having printed by PH21 Gallery) will be an archival pigment print. However, photographers may also choose to indicate different print types if they offer their accepted work for sale.
Photographs entered to the call do not have to be for sale.
By entering, entrants automatically accept the conditions of the competition; they grant PH21 Gallery nonexclusive right to use and reproduce submitted photographs (with the name of the photographer and the title of the work indicated) for promotional (e.g.: website and Facebook page of the Gallery, catalogue) and exhibition purposes. No royalties or compensation will be paid for these purposes. All copyrights and ownership of the works are retained by the photographer. Entrants assume and accept all legal and financial responsibility for any infringement on the privacy rights or copyright of others, caused by creating or presenting their work in public. PH21 Galley retains the right to exclude from the competition entries that violate the conditions of the competition and ones that violate any human or privacy rights.

When your work is selected for the exhibition:

Entrants selected for the exhibition will be asked to provide a high-resolution TIFF (or JPEG) file for us to have their photograph printed for a standard exhibition copy fee. Exhibition prints are matted (without a frame) on a board for installation, and the fee depends on the size of the print. For instance, for up to 40 centimetres or 15.75 inches (longest dimension) the matted exhibition print fee is €30.00. (Exhibiting photographers may also opt for shipping their own exhibit-ready prints.)

Exhibition prints will be kept on file for a year for future promotion unless the photographer prefers some other arrangement. In case of a sale inquiry the photographer will be promptly contacted. PH21 Gallery commission is 25%. (Submitted photographs, however, do not have to be for sale, and exhibition prints will never be sold; they are for exhibition and promotion purposes only.)

PH21 Gallery archives all photography exhibitions electronically, allowing us to promote our exhibiting photographers to curators, collectors as well as the viewing public. Our website also functions as a virtual gallery site, and all photographs included in our exhibitions are published on the dedicated page of the exhibition.

Further information: ph21.gallery@ph21gallery.com

Please use PayPal for paying your entry fee. We can only accept payment via PayPal at the moment.