The Saatchi Showdown was set up by Charles Saatchi on his online Saatchi Gallery and is located in London and has always focused on showing new, unknown artists to the world. Thousands of artists are registered with the site which receives over 50 million hits per day. In a recent effort to open up more opportunities for artists, Saatchi started an online competition which allows all artists worldwide to register and submit one work of art for a weekly Showdown. All submitted artwork is voted on by visitors to the website, and at the end of the week, the two highest rated works of art go head to head for another seven days to decide the winner.
In a new initiative to generate more exposure for the artists in Saatchi Online and to spotlight their work to as wide an audience as possible, they have created SHOWDOWN at the Saatchi gallery. Showdown is for all registered Saatchi Online and Stuart artists to enter their works for visitors to score. The winner of the final head-to-head vote will receive £1000 and the runner up will receive £750. The winning work will go on display at the new Saatchi gallery.
HOW IT WORKS
To submit your artwork in SHOWDOWN, you need to be a registered Saatchi Online or Stuart artist.
The process is as follows: on Monday mornings from 9 am (UK time) registered artists on Saatchi Online and Stuart have until 6 pm Sunday night (UK time) to load an image for Showdown
Voting takes place for the next seven days (Monday 9 am until the following Monday 9 am UK time). The two artworks with the highest overall scores go head-to-head. Visitors then vote on the two head-to-head works for a further seven days.
After twelve rounds all the head-to-head victors enter a knockout phase, until the final showdown, to choose an overall winner. Throughout the seven day head-to-head vote, artists are able to enter one of their works for the next round of the contest, so that the process is continuous. Artists are able to enter every round of the contest that they wish to.
VOTING system
Any visitor to the site can rate and vote for artworks in Showdown. All visitors are free to vote on all artworks, scoring them from one to ten (one being the lowest score and ten the highest). Although visitors can vote for as many artworks that have been entered as they like, to prevent multiple voting by one person for one work, only one vote per individual artwork will be accepted from each visitor.
The artworks are displayed randomly and constantly rotate. Each time an artwork is rated by clicking on a star to register a vote a new random artwork is displayed. To see more images please click on the ‘Click here to see more images’ displayed on the SHOWDOWN homepage.
If you have already rated an artwork, your rating will be displayed, and this rating cannot be changed.
Vote for Finalists artwork on Showdownat Saatchi Gallery to determine the winner. It is for all registered artists to enter their artworks for visitors to Vote.
