my CV of Rejection

Every artist has two careers.

The visible one, made of exhibitions, publications, acquisitions, awards, reviews, invitations, and recognition.

And the invisible one, made of unanswered emails, rejected proposals, unsuccessful applications, closed doors, silence, doubt, and persistence.

Traditional CVs document the first.

My CV of Rejection documents the second.

The conceptual origins of this work can be traced to my encounter with Evidence of Being, a series by American artist and friend Arlene Rush. Her work reflects on the traces left by existence and on the ways a life can be measured through fragments, accumulations, and evidence rather than through conventional narratives of achievement.

That encounter prompted a question that would eventually become the foundation of this project:

What is the evidence of an artistic life that never appears in an artist's CV?

My CV of Rejection has functioned as an evolving archive of unanswered emails, declined proposals, unsuccessful applications, rejected articles, unselected artworks, institutional silences, abandoned opportunities, and moments when continuing no longer seemed obvious.

While these experiences are largely absent from professional biographies, they constitute a substantial part of artistic practice. For most artists, rejection is not an exception. It is the norm.

Acceptance is rare.

Rejection is abundant.

Yet only one of them is traditionally recorded.

The project originated from a simple observation:

The history of art is largely written through acceptance, while the far greater history of rejection remains invisible.

Museums collect accepted works.

Institutions archive accepted projects.

Publications record accepted articles.

Artists present accepted exhibitions.

The countless refusals that make those achievements possible usually disappear without a trace.

My CV of Rejection seeks to preserve that missing history.

The work does not seek to expose institutions, curators, galleries, museums, editors, collectors, or individuals. No names, places, organizations, or identifying details are included.

Their identities are not important.

The rejection itself is important.

The fact that it happened is important.

The decision to continue afterward is important.

In contemporary culture, rejection is generally understood as failure. It is often experienced as something embarrassing, painful, or undesirable. This project proposes a different reading.

From an artistic perspective, rejection may be more revealing than acceptance.

Acceptance confirms a decision.

Rejection exposes a system.

Acceptance tells us what entered.

Rejection reveals what remained outside.

Acceptance validates.

Rejection questions.

Acceptance is visible.

Rejection is usually hidden.

For this reason, rejection possesses a unique critical value. It reveals the invisible structures through which visibility, legitimacy, opportunity, and cultural value are distributed. It exposes the boundaries of institutions, the limits of selection processes, and the countless possibilities that remain unrealized.

In this work, rejection is not treated as a personal failure.

It is treated as artistic material.

Each refusal becomes part of the artwork in the same way that a mark becomes part of a drawing or a sentence becomes part of a text.

The numbers presented in the work do not function as statistics. They function as evidence.

Evidence of persistence.

Evidence of labor.

Evidence of time.

Evidence of remaining present despite uncertainty.

The project therefore transforms private experiences into a collective archive shared by artists, writers, researchers, and cultural workers across generations.

Every artist possesses a hidden curriculum of rejections.

Most simply never document it.

Because the work is continuously updated, it can never be completed. Each new refusal, each unanswered email, each unsuccessful proposal expands the archive and alters the artwork itself.

Paradoxically, the piece grows through accumulation. Every rejection enriches it. Every closed door contributes to its form.

The project ultimately proposes that acceptance and rejection are not opposites.

They are complementary forces within the same ecosystem.

One cannot exist without the other.

Yet only one is usually remembered.

If a traditional curriculum vitae measures recognition, My CV of Rejection measures perseverance.

If a traditional curriculum records visibility, My CV of Rejection records what visibility leaves behind.

The final statement, Still Working, is neither optimistic nor pessimistic.

It is simply a fact.

After every unanswered email.

After every rejected proposal.

After every closed door.

The work continues.

The artist continues.

Still Working.