Hi Davide,
Thank you for sharing. We had a similar experience with same art prize and wondered whether we had “participated” unknowingly in an art scam. Unfortunately, we found your warning a bit too late. Well, here’s our experience. My wife paid the fee, completed her submittal, and found out yesterday (3 Nov 21) that her work was not selected. Like you, we have no issue with the fee or the selection process. However, we are concerned whether the work was ever reviewed by anyone as promised. My wife created an art website specifically to enter the contest. Her art website has a detailed analytics engine that provides information on visitors and traffic. No “visitors” from Luxembourg, France, or anywhere on the continent of Europe visited her site. All traffic was from North America -less than 2 dozen unique visitors. We can account and identify all visits. We have no evidence that prize jurors reviewed the work. It was this data that caused me to search for a potential scam angle and I found your warning. So, Caveat Emptor art colleagues. Something smells in Luxembourg.
The selection system practiced by the jury of artistic prizes is the same for everyone. The first quick selection is determined by the photos depicting the works. If the work in the photo attracts their interest, they also look at the profile of the participating artist. The jury already knows the type of works of art they are looking for, therefore the works they do not consider interesting are immediately discarded, they do not waste time dwelling on art and artists who for various reasons are not interesting for them. They dedicate only a few seconds to the discarded artist, the time of a quick glance at the first photo of his works presented.