Artists who didn’t make Minnesota State Fair get second chance in ‘Rejects’ show

Artist Attila Ray Dabasi used to get into the annual juried fine arts exhibition at the Minnesota State Fair regularly. But lately it’s gotten harder.

He was accepted every year in the ’90s and early 2000s, and again in 2019 but not this year.

Instead, his human-sized sculpture “Armageddon,” will be one of about 75 “rejected” artworks in the 2025 “State Fair Rejects” show. It opens Saturday at Douglas Flanders & Associates Gallery in Minneapolis. Anyone who dropped off work was accepted into the show.

This year, 2,834 artworks were submitted to the State Fair Fine Art Exhibition, with the most submissions in photography and painting/mixed media.

Only 337 made the cut.

The rejects show gives artists a place to exhibit their work outside of the Minnesota State Fair and a chance to sell it to art-loving audiences. It also offers a little cheer-up to those who were sad about not getting in.

“We don’t think of them as rejected, I don’t think the jurors think of them as rejected,” State Fair Fine Arts Center Superintendent Jim Clark said. “There is only so much space in the building.”

Last year, the gallery had 52 spurned artworks. This year, there will be 75.

On the first day of drop-offs, several paintings leaned against the wall, including a three-panel abstract acrylic painting by Kari Maxwell, and a portrait of a man named Tim by Hawkins Moore.

Flanders Gallery Director Syril McNally. described participating artists, many of them newbies, as excited and grateful.

This is only the second year Flanders Gallery is doing the rejects show, which is scheduled to run through Sept. 27.

“We started it just because all of the artists we work with were getting rejected,” gallery owner Doug Flanders said. “And I said: ‘Let’s do a rejects show.’”

Burl Gallery in St. Paul also hosts a rejects show that opens on Aug. 23 and is scheduled to run through Sept. 20.

For some, getting rejected is something to remember. When internationally acclaimed photographer Alec Soth,a former staff photographer at Mia and current member of Magnum Photos, was rejected from the State Fair Fine Arts show in 2012, he blogged his rejection note.

For artists who are turned down again and again, it can start to feel personal.

“It kind of hits you, like gosh what am I doing wrong?” Dabasi said. “All the entries I’ve shown them since … I thought they were great."

Jurors in each category change every year, ensuring there is always someone different there ― and there aren’t any hard feelings.