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  • 1.  Juried art competitions and inclusion or not of AI generated works

    Posted 08-13-2024 12:10 PM

    We host a regional art exhibition every few years and this year we want to address AI generated work in our prospectus.

    To clarify, our exhibition is not online and accepted artist's work is hung in our galleries. I am interested to know:

    Do you host juried art exhibitions? Is the work judged in person or through digital images of the work submitted by the artist?

    Do you accept AI generated work?

    If so, what are your policies specific to AI generated works?

    If you don't, what are your policies excluding AI generated works? 

    Thank you, 



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    Shannon Lindridge
    Collections Director
    Roberson Museum & Science Center
    Binghamton NY
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  • 2.  RE: Juried art competitions and inclusion or not of AI generated works

    Posted 08-19-2024 12:50 PM

    While I don't personally host art shows, I can give some information and a suggestion on how you might include AI art. But first, ask yourself what you're trying to avoid by excluding AI from your show. I think most blanket exclusions of AI are simply because institutions don't want to deal with it, and that's fair. Many shows don't accept video art because projectors, sound, electric power, and light control is an added hassle. AI art is just more a hassle in other ways. Unfortunately, when confronted with AI bans it's easy to lie.

    The two main issues I'm aware of regarding AI art is copyright infringement and public perception (that it is sort-of cheating). It is entirely possible to create art using AI that doesn't infringe other artist's rights and some artists take precautions and/or extra steps to avoid legal complications. This can be done through training your own AI ( like Janelle Shane ), using AI generators that control sources ( like Shutterstock AI ), or careful use e.g. using the product of the generator as a step of a larger process ( like Adam Chau and Risa Puno). Banning AI art doesn't avoid copyright concerns anyway, and most infringement goes unnoticed or unaddressed until it's a big name artist. Looking at you Andy Warhol and Jeff Koons.

    Negative public perception is the tougher issue and comes up all the time. Many of the same arguments have be levied at photoshop, instagram filters, pop-art, and collage. People think AI art is lazy and often it is, but I'd argue it isn't inherently lazy and some lazy art is still exceptional. Ultimately this is the judge(s) job and they should be effective at weeding out lazy/generic art regardless of how it's made. FYI, there was AI art at the last Whitney Biennial, though I have negative opinions about that specific work. 

    My suggestion is to include as part of the submission a brief description of art process. This could be excluded from the initial rounds of judging if you want the work to be judged purely visually. If the AI art is sufficiently interesting to pass through rounds of judging, it gives you additional language to talk about the work to visitors, or an option to nix it from the final selection. I optimistically think a question about process may get artists to think about how they can push themselves and their medium of choice.

    The policy recommendations are regardless of what you decide, but are especially useful with AI art.

    1. A requirement that artists own all rights to the works they submit. You could add a related AI specific policy about which AI generators are allowed/not allowed.
    2. A statement that you may reject accepted works upon receiving in special cases. (Great for when people lie about dimensions/materials, print little photos real big, or judges missed some detail that's highly offensive.)
    3. All artworks must be ready for hanging/display.

    Judging in person is ideal! I've never had the luxury, but it will be much easier to differentiate between digital painting and AI generation. Online detection tools are best, but have limits for free services.

    Hope this is helpful! Good luck with the show.



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    Allen West
    Senior Project Technician
    The Fabric Workshop and Museum
    Philadelphia PA
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    Original Message


  • 3.  RE: Juried art competitions and inclusion or not of AI generated works

    Posted 08-20-2024 05:35 PM

    We organize two annual juried exhibitions, one for fine art (43 years) and one focused exclusively on photography (30 years). They are juried in person by a panel of three independent jurors. Last year we added AI prohibition language to each Prospectus. Our current language states: "Entries must not be the product of or contain imagery derived by Artificial Intelligence."

    This is all on the honor system, but we did disqualify a photography entry last spring. After being juried into the exhibition, we requested a digital file for marketing purposes before we announced and opened. The image's file name indicated that the artist had used an online service that "cleans noise" from digital images using Artificial Intelligence. The process of using technology to improve an image didn't even occur to the artist as being derived by AI. But in our conversation, we related that we had to draw a line somewhere, and since the technology is changing at every moment, it was the better position for us to draw the line absolutely rather than by each subjective use. The artist was very understanding and accepted our position.



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    Marshall Adams
    Executive Director
    A.E. Backus Museum
    Fort Pierce FL
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    Original Message


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