submissions

In today's art world it is essential to have one's work exhibited. Artists often perceive the rejection of their submissions as failures. With self-deflating humor, Keith Daly compiled his past submissions to Embark Gallery -- all of which were rejected -- into an artist's book for the exhibition "F: Failure isn't an option... it's an inevitability" organized by Embark. The failures in “submissions” are not fabrications or stand-ins. They are specific and "native" to the arts organization who initiated "F". Daly's four failed submissions become the primary material for a fifth submission which is successfully curated into the exhibition. As such, "submissions" is a bit of a paradox. Whereas the four submissions were rejected privately through a juried process, in “submissions” they're regurgitated and exposed publicly, albeit in their "proposal" form (a limbo-like form, living between studio and exhibition). "submissions", then, is five submissions rolled into one, four failures leading to one success.