All the King ' s Men

Untitled by Tod Seelie

I hate to pick on Tokion again (and again and again and again) but man (pun intended) they really can't take a hint.

An email just popped up in my Inbox announcing the winners of their recent King of the Road photo competition. And by "King" they really mean King.

From the email:

Tokion and Scion would like to extend our heartfelt congratulations to the winners of the King of the Road contest: Flynn Larsen, Jessica Palumbo, Rob Hann, Jorn Tomter, Drew Kelly, Tod Seelie and our Reader's Choice Winner Dustin Aksland. The eight winning photographs will be published in the May issue of Tokion in a limited edition postcard booklet...
And special thanks to our judges, Jason Lee, Michael Halsband, agnes b., Christian Patterson and Ross Evertson. Don't forget to pick up a copy of the May issue and send out a postcard to one of your fellow travelers.

Let's do some math, shall we?

The panel? Four men, one woman. (I can't imagine why they didn't ask me to participate, hmm.) Their winners? There are seven (including a Readers' Choice). One of them is a woman. It's nice to see Tod Seelie among their seven selections - he makes great work and has shown at my gallery several times since I first opened. But, y'know: COME ON.

There are lots of amazing female photographers out there. I've selected dozens of them via my own competition, Hey, Hot Shot!. I've never had to try hard. I've never had to lower my standards in order to include women.

After all the dust-up about their conferences, it's total fuck you to conceive of and promote a competition called King of the Road. Because I am a nice person and sort of a Pollyanna at heart, when I first heard about it I thought "inopportune figure of speech" in spite of our tumultuous history together. And personally, I'd rather be a King than a Queen. (Have you seen The Tudors? Henry gets to have all the fun.)

But the title + the panel + their selections + their conferences + their history adds up into one big steaming pile of misogyny.

Comments

[Michelle Kahn]

I think you are still bitter that Tokion didn't ask you to be on the original board. There are more important battles. Grow up. Move on.

[Jen Bekman]

Um, no. I don't quite know what you mean by "original board". Are you talking about the conference? This issue has absolutely nothing to do with my own ego or ambitions.

It's not personal; it's about something much broader, and it's something that I consider important.

[Laia]

The problem is precisely that, that there are always more "important battles" and other things, and I think this IS important.
It really sucks because Tokion is such an awesome magazine, but in the end I think they're really just doing what every other magazine and tv show etc, are doing. I'm not justifying them, it's just unfortunate.

[Gong Szeto]

but aren't cameras metaphors for penises anyway?

kidding aside, inequality has been a problem for a long time, getting better, but far from perfect. anytime anyone stands up while everyone is sitting down is by definition courageous. ((((jen))))

are you pickin' up what i'm puttin' down?

[Alison]

Look, Scion was a sponsor, and Scion likes 'em young and male: http://www.usatoday.com/money/autos/2007-04-26-scion-usat_N.htm

[adam]

how do you know they even looked at the names of the photographers when they chose them? maybe the images they chose just happened to be male.

i have red hair, and i was wondering if any of the winners or panel have red hair? if they dont, then WHAT THE FUCK!!!! are they trying to say red heads cant take photographs?!?!?!? im insulted.

[Alison]

I think the point is more that, the panel was decidedly male (barring one woman), and it's funny that as a result one woman was a winner. This is a larger issue in the arts and creative fields, not just photography. Professionally, while there are of course some amazing larger than life talented women in the field, it's predominantly more male. It's a topic which comes up in many groups, not just here. In conferences, in awards, in work. The question is why are women not equal in representation within the arts? It can't be said that as a gender women aren't as good as men at creative endeavors can it? So why the disparity?

[Jesse]

I wonder what the statisitcal ratio of male to female entries was for this particular contest. Is there a way to obtain this information?

Were the judges shown names, gender, statements, or maybe even art school affiliation with the images? Does this happen with most contests or are you judges out there just shown images? If these judges are shown such data, what is more of concern is the idea that these ubiquitous New York photography contests are becoming more and more a political, cliquey, self-serving, advertising tool. Let alone a way for the organizers to make money on entry fees. It seems to have nothing to do with image making.

I believe the title of the contest was referencing an old cowboy song. Could be wrong, but if so, it is worth a poetic ponder over its greater meaning. http://www.cowboylyrics.com/lyrics/miller-roger/king-of-the-road-1164.html

On a final note, and I will be the first to point this out it seems, is what an extraordinary group of uninspiring work: http://www.tokion.com/kingoftheroad/html/index.html

[jen]

I just want to point out that I think Flynn Larsen is a woman. Not that that really changes your point that much. I could be wrong but I seem to remember seeing the pronoun she used in context of Flynn's work.

[Jen Bekman]

Hey, Jen... you seem to be correct. When I poked around yesterday, I saw something that referred to Flynn as a "he", then I dug deeper and saw an interview with a her.

I'm actually not entirely sure about whether it changes my point or not. It's still a shitty ratio, but as Alison points out, they're really not so much after the chick market and as Jesse points out, the contest may well be just a advertising tool more than anything. (Although, and obviously I am biased, I don't think all contests/competitions are that.)

I have more thoughts about this, and about the whole issue in general that will have to wait 'til the weekend - there's an opening at the gallery tonight that I must go off and prepare for.

[Donald Giannatti]

While I think that the work is kinda uninspiring, a little "artsy-predictable" and such, I find that looking at the outcome and drawing references to a quota system bothers me a bit. In Phoenix we have literally only a couple of women who are working and members of ASMP. And being a member doesn't mean that everyone is working, it is a membership that runs the gamut from very busy pros to hangers on. Phoenix is the fifth or sixth largest city... It is what it is. I have had 7 women assistants though the years. I wanted to encourage women to enter the field and I also found that they were far more reliable than the guys. None of them went on to be photographers.

Before I got too disparaging on this result I would like to know if the judges knew whose work they were judging (which would suck), how many entered and of those that entered how many were women? Then it could be determined if "foul" is a justification.

My daughters ice skate. I can tell you that way more (95%) of the ice skating medals won outside of major competition are won by women. If we apply the same logic, we can say that is not fair at all. Until we realize that even less than that % are male.

Not a criticism, but more an attempt to make some clarity. When we look at outcomes and judge the process as unfair, then we commit an error in our methodology and that serves noone.

cheers,

[richard]

does anyone still read tokion? such a poor, hateful little publication i'm surprised you can summon the energy to be bothered

[Bursera]

The only issues of Tokion I have were sent to me as payment for my contribution of several photos to a recent issue. Never got the tiny sum I was promised months ago. They evidently have more to worry about than sexism or integrity. Perhaps art is just a printable commodity to them. Buy low, sell high, ignore the haters.

I'm curious if they're offering money to anyone else with photos on Flickr, then screwing them over.

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