Call for Entires: The art of photography

Call for Entries newsletter

The art of photography

A curated international photography exhibition

January 6 – 13, 2020, PH21@Barcelona

A PH21 Gallery Exhibition in Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain

Although photography first emerged as a technological invention, it was also quickly conceived as an artistic practice as well. Pictorialist photographs in the nineteenth century were created to look like paintings, while advocates of straight photography in the first part of the twentieth century strived for the purely photographic means of creating photographic meaning. Street photographers devoted the medium to capturing the fleeting moment, while in the last part of the twentieth century many photographers turned to staging and directing in order to utilize photography for artistic visual communication. Art photography also includes numerous genres and creative practices from portraiture, landscape and still life to abstract and conceptual photography. In this call we ask contemporary photographers to show how they understand art photography in the twenty first century.

PH21 Gallery invites photographers to submit their work for a group exhibition themed The art of photography. We are looking for submissions from all photographers who are interested in photography as an art form and would like to share their work with a wider international audience through the exposure of PH21 Gallery. The theme is broadly construed; we welcome submissions from all artistic photographic genres and styles, including abstract compositions. We are interested in all possible creative photographic interpretations of what photography as an art form might be.

Please note that this PH21 Gallery exhibition will be presented in Barcelona, Catalonia Spain, in collaboration with Valid World Hall Gallery, a renowned centre for the visual arts.

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.)

Curator: Zsolt Bátori

Zsolt is a philosopher of art and photographer. He currently serves as dean of the Faculty of Art and Creative Industries of the Budapest Metropolitan University, and visits the University of Murcia, Spain for regular research collaboration. He has conducted research and taught philosophy of art and photography courses at various universities in Hungary, the United States, Spain and Argentina, and has exhibited his photographic work internationally. Zsolt is also the founder and director of PH21 Gallery.

Visit Zsolt's website.

Submission deadline: December 9, 2019

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

Exhibition dates: January 6 – 13, 2020, PH21@Barcelona

There are two 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 €20.00 for the first 3 images, €25.00 for 5 images, €30.00 for 7 images, €35.00 for 10 images, and €40.00 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 €13.00. 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.

Submission rules and guidelines:

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 curator is final.
The entry fee is not refundable.
Please send in the entry fee (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 ppi; 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 and other characters 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)
Please do not use any other characters (spaces, dashes, apostrophes, periods etc.) in the file names. File names should only contain letters of the English alphabet and underscores.
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 own personal website address (not a social media or collective page), 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 print fee. The fee depends on the size of the print. For instance, for up to 40 centimetres or 15.75 inches (longest dimension) the exhibition print fee is €35.00. (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.