If I told you I have spent $10,000 in the past 3 years on application fees with a 97% rejection rate for my applications, would you believe me? Also, if I told you I have participated in 50 exhibitions on my curriculum vitae over many years, and the top 15 exhibitions, in terms of quality, had no application fee, would you believe me? Well, as unbelievable as these statements may sound, they are both true. My 97% rejection rate is not due to poor presentation, bad writing, an

An artifact typically acts as a memorial to a civilization and testament to a period of time. But what if the concept of an artifact were to be used as an ‘anti-memorial’ and to instill institutional criticism? Such notions are captured in the conceptual artworks of Luna Qiuwen Lyu, a jewelry designer and interactive installation artist. From sonic waves which traverse space and transmit the chatter of the 20th century recordings in an installation such as A Billion Solitary

artwork by Van O (Ivan Isaev) Much of the contemporary art world is based on illusory aspects of power. There are of course the supposed gatekeepers, but who are these people and do they really determine the threshold of access? They are the museum / gallery director, the curator, the art critic (and critical art publications), the academic scholar, and the financier. These various roles and individuals have been granted the collective power of determining what is art. But wh