They say that if you include a poll on your web page you can increase your web traffic- and man, are they ever right! When we launched our first poll on Monday we had no idea how many hits we’d get. In two days we’ve had as many hits as we’ve had in the last fortnight. What we also didn’t anticipate was how seriously people would take it both in terms of the organised voting blocks that have appeared but also the tut-tutting we’ve received from our readers for being so trivial. Well, we stand admonished, crestfallen and apologetic. How dare we launch such a time wasting exercise on the art world when everyone has clearly much more important work to do.
We did know that some people would vehemently disagree with our list so we left the opportunity open for people to nominate other more deserving influential art world people and the nominations have been… interesting. Ignoring the fact that this is a poll for influential art people in Sydney, Nick Cave, Ross Cameron and Anna Schwartz have been nominated. More serious minded readers have nominated artists John Gillies and Jon Peart, collectors Colin Laverty and Pat Corrigan, OzCo lady Anna Waldman, Sydney Art Scene apparatchik Gail Hastings, curators Judy Annear and Vivienne Webb, the staff at Artspace and David Jobling, the host of 2SER’s Artichoke program.
Meanwhile, the Comments pop up below is starting to glow red with the heated traffic. As Mick Jagger said at Altamont, people, people, let’s all just cool out! It’s not that serious and someone is gonna get hurt! We think that a responsible blog would just put an end to the whole thing but we have decided to go one better and are proud to announce that we will offer A PRIZE for the person or organization that gets the most votes!
Voting will close at midday this Saturday (October 2) and the winner will receive a special critic’s preview edition of the DVD of Stork, the 1971 Tim Burstall film written by David Williamson and starring Bruce Spence, Graeme Blundell and Jacki Weaver. In the event that Other wins, the best, most deserving nomination made by Art Life readers will bag the prize.
