"LipSynch" Levine, Phyllis (2005)

Rejected: Salon des NEO Refusés

The Cleveland Museum of Art is one of the world's great art museums. Beginning in 1919, CMA has invited the artists of Northeast Ohio to submit work for an annual exhibition, the fabled "May Show." Dropped in the mid-1990s, the exhibition was reprised in 2005 as the new "NEO Show." It is not surprising that 1,289 artists submitted work; yet only 80 artists were accepted.

The rejected artists included some of the best artists working in Northeast Ohio.

Ingenuity provided a venue for some of these artists to show their work in a "physical show" at the Galleria in downtown Cleveland; and DMoMA put much of the "rejected" work in the virtual museum. We think you will agree that Northeast Ohio has a far greater depth and diversity of artistic talent than captured in the NEO Show alone.