Application period: February 1–28, 2017
apexart announces its 10th annual Franchise Exhibition Program open call: an opportunity to propose and produce an exhibition that takes place anywhere in the world except New York City. No prior curatorial experience is necessary and anyone can apply.
The submission process
Proposals should describe focused, idea-driven, and original group exhibitions, cannot exceed 500 words, and must be written in English. No biographical information, CVs, links, or images will be accepted. Projects are judged by the strength of their ideas and the organizer’s ability to communicate them, not by connections or past accomplishments.
The selection process
An international jury of up to 200 individuals from a wide variety of professional backgrounds rates the proposals. Submissions are made anonymous and jurors assign their scores independently online over the course of a month. Rather than convene a small panel to review hundreds of ideas, we use a system of crowd-sourcing wherein many jurors review a random subset of proposals, with each proposal generally receiving more than 30 ratings.
The organizers of the four highest-ranked proposals receive an exhibition budget of up to 6,000 USD, a location rental budget of up to 2,000 USD, an honorarium of 2,000 USD for organizing the exhibition and writing an accompanying essay, and administrative support and involvement necessary to present their proposals as apexart Franchise Exhibitions.
apexart is not a funding organization; these exhibitions are part of apexart’s regular programming. Organizers are expected and challenged to work within the funding provided to produce a small, focused, and noteworthy exhibition.
Submit your proposal on apexart’s Franchise Exhibition Program page beginning February 1, 2017.
