Michiyo Yamanaka probably devoted several weeks to creating the three abstract paintings she entered in this year's Nikaten, one of Japan's oldest and largest competitive art exhibitions. Heaven forbid she ever finds out how long it took the judges to condemn her efforts to oblivion: 18 seconds.
"How about these? In? Out? The outs have it," announced the MC of the judging session, with ruthless efficiency. Neither he nor the official adjudicator standing at his side felt the need to actually count the number of hands that constituted the majority — it seemed almost all of the 140 or so judges who had gathered on this late August morning in a small concert hall-like room in the bowels of the National Art Center, Tokyo, were in agreement.
"Michiyo Yamanaka: out," confirmed a note-taker sitting at the side of the room. And that was that. As three bored-looking handlers exited with Yamanaka's paintings at stage right, another three entered from stage left with the next batch. Conveyer-belt sushi sprung to mind.