Who wins at a show?

[nuttiest]

Do all the trees have a provenance? How does that factor in? Been showed multiple times before?
How does length of ownership of current owner / past owner affect?
Do the organizers / curators take this into account for submissions or museum displays?

 

[Brian Van Fleet]

Judging is subjective, and you should always understand what the judge tends to favor if you’re trying to appeal. Bjorn would be drawn to tidy lines and traditional Japanese aesthetics, where Peter Warren may be drawn to quirky, interesting trunk lines and delicate compositions. Likely Dan Robinson would be drawn to a more rugged feel.

I have judged a few shows, and helped Kathy Shaner judge several as well. For me, provenance is not factored in. If a tree is familiar (or has some provenance), it may get a little additional attention, but in the end, I kind of stick with this. This is my order of priority, though a lot of it happens simultaneously.

1. Health & demonstrated horticultural care
2. Good representation of the species (if that is the objective)
3. Nebari, trunk age, movement, taper
4. Branch placement, ramification & leaf scale
5. Pot selection
6. Attention to detail for show prep (balance of foliage, clean trunk, mossed, pot clean, minimal wiring, or at least tidy)
7. Accent, stand selection (if appropriate)

Length of ownership doesn’t really matter because it’s the tree being judged, not the owner. If you drop $20k on a tree and have it delivered to a local show, pretty good chance it can stand out and win. Our club has several categories based on members’ years of experience that helps sort that out a little.

Someone explained to me once that in Japan, trees that have recently won a big show actually drop in value a little because they won’t be “eligible” to win again for a while. However I don’t think that’s the case once a tree becomes famous enough that it’s iconic in the bonsai world. At that point, some become an “important bonsai masterpiece”, receiving recognition and/or preferential placement in the show and in some cases are not included in the judging.

The U.S. Nationals have rules that a tree isn’t eligible to show again for several years, which helps keep the show fresh.

 

[Bonsai Nut]

A tree is judged on its own merits - owner and provenance aside.

That said, I always think it is a little cheezy to take a $25K import tree that you've owned for six months to a show where you are going display it next to trees that owners have been developing for decades. I think if you want to share a tree like that you put it on display with a card "for exhibition only". Just my opinion. However, it is easy to fall down a rabbit hole of "this is an import tree someone has owned for 10 years" versus "this is a local tree that has had four owners - and the current owner has owned it for six months". Where do you draw the line?

Some of the shows on the West Coast had exhibition rooms for important trees that had won big awards in the past, and then a separate area for trees that were to be judged.

 

[nuttiest]

Good comments - also wondering if a high percentage of best of show trees eventually get donated to a museum. or does it seem museums have a high percentage of trees that won awards in their past? Or do they only 'take on' mostly well known trees?

 

[MaciekA]

I think the meta discussion around judging at bonsai shows can be a bit of a mental abyss. I am privy to more than one art scene where people submit entries to a show and then afterwards, entrants and observers and judges fixate about whether the judging was truly fair or not, sometimes for years (!). It is interesting but also depressing to see practitioners in both (very different, one digital, the other not) art scenes experience heartache and stress over which entry "should" have won. I think we should try to avoid the abyss and maybe focus more on show screening and less on "the" winner. Perhaps this is naive, or maybe awarding "the" status (or publishing a ranking) at an art show with such diverse entries is the broken part.

I never notice which tree got the extra best-in-show / president's-choice note in kokufu albums. The pre-screening of which trees even made it to that show is the filter that I think personally matters to me because almost everything that makes it into the kokufu is so superlatively overqualified (esp from a US pov). Rarely do I think the best-in-show tree at the kokufu is my personal favorite, but it's always impressive nonetheless. On the other hand, the legitimacy of that top prize has been somewhat poisoned for me as I've heard rumors that in some particular year a tree got awarded that not due to pure merit, but for special, perhaps social reasons or worse. But ultimately the entire album is really impressive. I feel the same way about US shows, that screening does the bulk of the heavy lifting, and that the exhibitions themselves are an achievement.

Some cynical answers that have been rumored to be true of US exhibitions:

- The winning tree has the largest number of brigaded votes, and those votes reflect its social graph (club affiliations, teacher/professional clans, regional, etc)
- The winning tree is simply the largest tree

I think the answer from @Bonsai Nut could easily be item #3 and is abyss-like in the long run. Some of the most visible well known bonsai professionals in the US have spent hours talking on podcasts about how judging is flawed or an unfinished project in the US, or that they didn't agree with this show or that show's judging (except they used stronger and more negative terms than I have here). I think if professionals could wave a magic wand, in the ideal they'd like to see a judge group of experienced professionals. That is practically-speaking really tricky to arrange for all species and styles and so on. So it might remain an abyss for a while.

Not an answer to the thread question, I side with the hypothetical ideal the professionals suggest, but admittedly I'm probably still just happy that the exhibition was held at all, that I get to see the results at all. Here's to the mere qualifiers / screening survivors?

 

[BrianBay9]

Good comments - also wondering if a high percentage of best of show trees eventually get donated to a museum. or does it seem museums have a high percentage of trees that won awards in their past? Or do they only 'take on' mostly well known trees?

Depends on the museum, and the show. Major bonsai collections in the US at least are always looking to improve their holdings - sell off the bottom 10% to fund acquiring better trees. Each has a maximum number of trees they can manage and they always seem to be pushing the edge. Of course as artists age they often look to donate trees to make sure they continue to receive proper care.

 

[Leo in N E Illinois]

Who wins?
As long as shows are judged by a single judge, this will always be subjective and arbitrary. Customary is a guest bonsai artist is asked to judge a bonsai show. There is no specific credentialing of the judge. It is "okay" with me, because that seems to be what is done across USA. Usually the guest artist is someone who is currently on the lecture / workshop / seminar tour circuit, usually someone who has made a name for themselves, possibly published, or otherwise well known in bonsai circles. The results are usually good, but occasionally there are capricious exceptions.

In American Orchid Society approved shows, the shows are judged by a team of at least 3, preferably 5 fully accredited AOS judges, with a team of student judges assisting. Accreditation is a 5 year minimum process, requiring serving as a student judge for a minimum of 12 shows a year, plus giving presentations of a particular judging topics each year. Many accredited AOS judges had to take more than 5 years to finish their student terms, due to time demands of "real life" interfering with being able to go to orchid shows across the country every other weekend. Overall, the AOS judging standards are quite good, I rarely see "capricious" or "rando" awards. Generally every award granted seems to be well deserved.

Personally, I would like to see the American Bonsai Society, or other national bonsai groups, develop an accredited judging program. But that is my take coming from the "orchid world".

The current system is not too bad, as usually the guest artist who judges the shows is of sufficient caliber that one of the better trees does get recognized.

It is the show chairman who sets the judging rules for each particular show. Some clubs standardize the rules, so there is no variation year to year, others can do a total re-write each year. It is the show chairman that decides how long an exhibitor has had to own a tree, whether or not there are skill categories, or other criteria.

For older, more important trees, the person who owns it is more of a curator than "the artist". I have seen exhibit entry forms that include "grown by", "styled by" and "exhibited by" on the entry form, allowing for 3 different names to be included. This is a nice but not entirely necessary.

A show is more than enough work for a team of people to stage. I applaud those that do this thankless work.

 

[rockm]

Good comments - also wondering if a high percentage of best of show trees eventually get donated to a museum. or does it seem museums have a high percentage of trees that won awards in their past? Or do they only 'take on' mostly well known trees?

I know the National Bonsai and Penjing Museum sometimes seeks out particular trees based on many things including an artists’ body of work over time and the overall quality of the tree, its species etc. that such a tree won a show or something is incidental.

Show “winner trees” don’t usually get donated to museums. They get bought and sold by private collectors. Trees are not purchased by the National museum as far as I know. They are donated by their owners. The Museum hasn’t got the money in the budget for such things. Even less so now with the federal staff reductions and budget cuts.