A brief history of the
ArtsWorcester Biennial
When the organization now known as ArtsWorcester was founded...
a top priority was to establish a juried exhibition of visual art, intended to showcase the highest quality and newest practices in the region. The first Biennial, fulfilling that intention, took place in 1985 at the Worcester County Horticultural Society at 30 Elm Street (now the Worcester Historical Museum). Nearly four decades later, it now takes place in our permanent home, but there the differences end.
The Biennial is the most competitive of ArtsWorcester’s offerings. An external juror--usually a curator at a regional museum, and different every Biennial-- is always engaged to select exhibited artwork and award prizes. These jurors look at a growing number of artists submitting work and a steady increase in the quality of that work, bringing to their selection process their own opinions and preferences. This year, some thirteen percent of submissions will be shown. As one artist put it, the Biennial is a rite of passage, but not one guaranteed from one exhibition to the next.
Selectivity inevitably leads to controversy, and the Biennial has always been ArtsWorcester’s most controversial exhibition. Art critic Leon Nigrosh described red paint being thrown over the entrance of Horticultural Hall at the very first Biennial, protesting the juror’s choices. It is a tradition to celebrate the Biennial, and to criticize it.
Despite, or because of controversy, the Biennial launches and celebrates careers. Ryan Foley had been washing dishes at the Boynton in the 1990s, when a coworker urged him to submit to the Biennial. Not only was his artwork accepted, but it won the Sally Bishop Prize, the top honor in the biennial, which he used to apply to MFA programs and move into a career as a full-time artist. Decades later, Sue Swinand’s winning of the Bishop Prize and the resulting exhibition at the Worcester Art Museum brought her artistic accomplishments to a larger audience and recognized an outstanding regional career.
The partnership with the Worcester Art Museum on exhibiting the Sally Bishop Prize winner is a relatively recent addition to the Biennial. WAM, however, has been part of the Biennial almost from the beginning, sponsoring prizes through its Hoche-Scofield Prize and Scholarship Fund and, in very early years, hosting the exhibition in the Higgins Educational Wing. The Sally Bishop Prize is named for an artist who was not only ArtsWorcester’s founding board chair but also a beloved instructor of art at WAM, and a friend to that institution as well.
For decades of Biennial support, we thank our partners at the Worcester Art Museum, the George F. and Sybil H. Fuller Foundation, and, above all, the artists of this region for their ambition and excellence.
With support from Mass Cultural Council.
Prizes are generously supported by ArtsWorcester's Artist Prize Fund and the Worcester Art Museum.
ArtsWorcester exhibitions are sustained in part by the generous support of the C. Jean and Myles McDonough Charitable Foundation.