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Panel of judges

The expert panel of judges is made up of teachers of visual art branches at primary art schools and primary schools and of professional visual artists. The number of judges is not fixed, however, the panel has usually 10 judges. Many of them have engaged in the work with children for many years and also are judges in other art competitions which enhances their knowledge about the quality of art education of children in the schools in our country and abroad.

The expert panel of judges sat to evaluate the entries at the Lidice Gallery at Lidice on 7 and 8 April 2008.

Report of the session of the expert panel of judges held on 7 – 8 April 2009 to evaluate the 37th ICEFA Lidice 2009

JUDGES OF THE 37TH ICEFA LIDICE 2009

Chairman of the panel: Josef Zedník – an artist, Olešná
Judges:
BABINEC, Zdeněk – the headmaster of the Primary Art School Kopřivnice
HANKE, Jiří – a photographer, Kladno
CHMELAŘOVÁ, Monika – a teacher at the Primary Art School Mšeno
KRUPKOVÁ KŘESADLOVÁ, Lada – a photographer and teacher at the Primary Art School Biskupská, Prague 1
MOUPIC, Zdeněk – a teacher at the Primary Art School Olomouc
NĚMCOVÁ, Kateřina – a teacher at the House of Children and Youth Ulita, Prague 3
RAJDL, Pavel – a teacher at the Primary Art School Kolín
SANDERS, Frances – an artist, Great Britain
SPĚVÁČKOVÁ, Jaroslava – a teacher in the visual art department of the Primary Art School Plzeň
SCHWARZOVÁ, Ivana – a teacher in the visual art department of the Primary Art School Strakonice
SOBKOVÁ, Milada– a methodologist at the House of Children and Youth Šumperk
STARÁ, Lada – a teacher in the visual art department of the Primary Art School Nové Strašecí
SYNECKÁ, Zdena – a methodologist at ARTAMA Praha

KASALICKÁ, Ivona – the curator of ICEFA Lidice

As the year 2009 was declared the Year of Astronomy, the UNESCO proposed to dedicate the 37th ICEFA Lidice 2009 to a theme relating to THE UNIVERSE. Children could draw inspiration from the many following detailed themes: “Discovering the universe“, “How to fly to the stars “, “I wonder what is there on the other planets “, “Sky and stars over my country“, “What an astronomer looks like“.

The expert judges were pleased by this year’s number of entries, which was several times higher than in previous years. Sad to say, however, most of them were nowhere near the standard set by the last year’s theme “Potatoes”. That is a great pity, for the universe offers a variety of opportunities for artistic representation, which are not limited to mere depiction of the Solar System, a flight in a space rocket or a meeting with an extraterrestrial. That the theme can be represented in depth and that children do discover the universe was made evident to the panel of judges by the entries submitted by the Primary Art School Kolín. In dealing with the theme, they demonstrated a wide variety in the content and in the medium, an outburst of creativity and the joy of work. Understandably, the personality of the teacher – his/her knowledge, skills, preparation, motivation of the pupils and time devoted to the work with children – still has an important role to play. The Lidice competition is the same as any other one, having its fixed rules and an independent panel of judges. Therefore, only the best can win prizes. We believe quality will prevail over quantity in the next year so that we will receive entries meeting our expectations as well as the expectations of visitors of the Lidice Gallery.

We assessed incredible 21,731 works of art by children from 53 countries this year. We are pleased to say that this year witnessed much more participating schools from the Czech Republic and the Slovak Republic as well as from countries which did not participate in previous years, e.g. Italia, Mexico, Germany, Norway, Austria, Spain or Afghanistan.

Like every year, it was very interesting to compare styles of submitted entries and their degree of elaboration as well as the inventiveness and the creative contribution of a child or a group of children. Most entries from the Czech Republic and abroad come under the categories of Painting, Drawing, Printmaking and Photography. Czech schools, as against the foreign ones, were allowed to submit 3D entries as well as fragile ceramic works, which represented groups of weird extraterrestrials, space vehicles or models of the Solar System. Ever more often, there is presented another type of children’s group work – a project, in which children record their activity, often resulting in an unportable creation, e.g. creations of snow or ice sculptures (Music School Staicele, Latvia), a cosmic feast (Primary school Poljčane, Slovenia) or even a cosmic wedding (Primary Art School Prostějov, CR).

Out of the total 21,731 entries from 53 countries 1467 were selected by the Panel of Judges to win prizes. Children from abroad received 593 prizes, out of which 48 were individual medals and 18 were medals to schools for their collections of exceptionally good works of fine art. Most of them were won by children from Bulgaria, Lithuania, Latvia and Romania. The eye of the panel of judges was caught also by pictures by children from Thailand, Indonesia, Philippines, Japan, Peru and Mexico, which make a welcome change in the exhibition every year.

Czech schools were awarded 729 prizes, out of which 48 were individual medals and 32 were medals to schools for their collections. Among the most successful are children from the Primary Art School Kolín, the Primary Art School Strakonice, the Primary Art School Most, the Primary Art School Plzeň and the House of Children and Youth Ulita from Prague. This year’s prize of the Panel of Judges was awarded to the above-mentioned Primary Art School Kolín for an extraordinary collection of paintings, drawings and printmakings. Slovak schools won 145 prizes this year, out of which 8 were individual medals and 8 were medals to schools. The most successful were children from Primary Art School Spišská Belá, Primary Art School Žilina – Gaštanová street and Primary Art School Prešov.

Regrettably, also this year some of good works of fine art have been excluded from evaluation because of missing proper description on them (improper identification of names and surnames, illegible data, incomplete addresses). A precondition of acceptance of a work for the exhibition is a careful description containing relevant data. Notwithstanding our warning to that effect in the invitation, this bad experience of us reoccurs every year.

Josef Zedník
Chairman of the panel of judges for the 37th ICEFA Lidice

Ivona Kasalická
Head of the Lidice Gallery and Curator of ICEFA Lidice