An Open Call for 11 Artists
I have been thinking about what remains of an artist when something familiar is taken away.
What remains when the photographer can't photograph?
Does the portrait disappear, or does it find another way to exist?
I've been living inside that question myself. Even during a period in which I have not been physically photographing people in the way I once did, I have continued to think about faces, gesture, character, memory and portraiture. The mechanism changed. The impulse did not.
That has led me to a larger question about authorship.
Artists develop languages over time: color, material, repetition, gesture, scale, subject, technique, instinct. We become comfortable with certain tools and certain ways of solving problems. But if some of those choices are removed, does an artist become less themselves—or does what is most distinctly theirs become easier to see?
CONDITION is a new ongoing experiment by amadeo amadeo built around that question.
For its first iteration, I am looking for 11 artists working across disciplines to join me. Twelve artists in total will begin with the same condition.
Each selected artist will receive an identical physical package by mail.
What is inside will not be disclosed in advance.
There is no proposal to submit for the resulting artwork because there is nothing to prepare for. The condition is meant to be encountered only when it arrives.
Each artist will then be asked to make one work while operating within the same set of material rules. How those rules are interpreted, negotiated, obeyed, resisted or exploited will be entirely individual.
The project is not interested in arriving at twelve versions of the same thing.
It is interested in the opposite.
How far apart can twelve artists travel when every one of them begins in exactly the same place?
The resulting works will first be presented together in The Journal by amadeo amadeo, accompanied by documentation and conversations with the participating artists. The complete body of work will also form the beginning of an archive intended for future physical exhibition and continued development of the CONDITION project.
OPEN CALL
Artists working in any discipline are encouraged to apply. Painting, photography, sculpture, textiles, design, writing, performance, collage, fashion, printmaking and practices that resist an easy category are all welcome.
I am not asking you to guess what the condition might be.
I want to understand how you think and how you make.
To apply, email studio@anthony-amadeo.com with the subject:
CONDITION 01 — [YOUR NAME]
Include your name and location, your primary medium or practice, a link to your website / portfolio / Instagram, and a small selection of recent work.
Then answer these two questions:
What do you believe remains unmistakably yours when your usual way of making is interrupted?
Tell me something about the way you make work that might not be immediately visible in the finished object.
Please do not send a proposal for what you would make for CONDITION 01.
You do not know yet.
That is part of it.
Applications close Wednesday, November 4, 2026 at 11:59 PM ET.
Eleven artists will be selected and contacted by Friday, November 6. Selected artists must be available to receive a physical package by mail, complete the condition within the project timeline, and return the resulting work for documentation and potential future exhibition.
Further project, shipping, archival and reproduction details will be provided to the selected artists before participation is confirmed.
There is no correct response to the condition.
There is only what you decide to do with it.
What remains when something you rely upon is taken away?
— Anthony Amadeo
amadeo amadeo