Review

Commentary on Bravo’s Work of Art: The Next Great Artist

Full book cover artwork for "The Time Machine," featuring artwork by John Parot. Image: courtesy of Penguin Group publishers

The perfected, distasteful facial expressions, the quirky, calculated, hodge-podge of personalities, and the ever-present drama form the buoyant foundation keeping reality television afloat. The diverse themes of reality television are the initial marketing ploys set in place to lure specific demographics to specific channels at specific times. The constants in the equations stay consistent with themes, acting as interchangeable variables widening the viewing market …blah, blah, blah …. Substitute fashion design, cooking, wealthy housewives, or, as now — contemporary art — as the theme, and one has tapped a new market. The list of possibilities goes on indefinitely as long as target market viewers remain untapped.

It is bewildering that contemporary art has become a concept for reality TV. Are the American masses ready to consume that which makes up the artistic personality? If I remember correctly, the film Art School Confidential bombed at the box office. Yet Bravo’s new show, Work of Art, resembles a behind-the-scenes glimpse at what goes on at such art schools — minus the sex, booze abuse, and drugs. Art School Confidential was scripted, of course, to poke fun at the inherent pretentiousness of art-focused colleges, but this new reality show provides pretentiousness just the same. In the show, a set of artists are given assignments to complete within a certain time frame, only to be torn apart — or praised —  in a televised critique by a panel of judges sporting impressive titles. Jeanne Greenberg Rohatyn, China Chow, and Bill Powers are a critique team of gallery owners/writers/advisors/collectors who have trolled the inner circles of the art world over the years. Those judges aside, the real surprise is that Bravo was able to pull New York Magazine art critic Jerry Saltz as the big-name judge on the panel.

John Parot's illustration for "The Time Machine" was selected by the "Work of Art" TV show judge panel as the winner of the third episode-challenge. The cover is being used by Penguin Group publishers, which procided the image to Review.

With the airing of the third episode last week, the original 14 contestants have been whittled down to 11: Nao Bustamante, Abdi Farah, Erik Johnson, Jaimie Lynn Henderson, Peregine Honig, Miles Mendenhall, Nicole Nadaeu, John Parot, Jaclyn Santos, Ryan Schulz, and Mark Velasquez — Amanda Williams, Trong Nguyen, and Judith Braun are already out.

In the June 23rd episode, the artists were challenged with creating new cover art for one of four classic novels, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, H.G. Wells's The Time Machine, and Bram Stoker’s Dracula. The winning book cover illustration for The Time Machine by John was dubbed first place to be used in the novel's next printing by top publisher, Penguin Group. The remaining contestants gave the viewing audience exactly what they wanted on this Wednesday-night airing. The stress was evident — the cast ran around frantically attempting to finish their book-cover art. Miles, the quirky and likeable character who plays up his OCD was at it again. This time, he decided to allocate most of his time reading his novel rather than designing the cover for it. The "cutesy girl," Jaclyn, titillated the audience with a typical reality-show exhibition of suggested nudity before then misspelling Jane Austen’s name on her finished book cover for Pride and Prejudice. Kansas City local, Peregrine Honig, was verbally punished for her book cover design for The Time Machine. In exhibiting their creativity (for a chance to win a solo exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum and $100,000 cash), these artists will have to endure great humiliation in pursuing such a prize.

That the Brooklyn Museum is willing to gamble a solo show on the winner of a reality television show is mind-blowing at best. This is a museum that has shown such artists as Jean-Michel Basquiat, Takashi Murakami, Gilbert and George, and Ron Mueck. The list of heavy hitters goes on, justifying this institution's place as a respectable museum of contemporary art. One must wonder if this new TV show is a conspiracy to get fresh blood through art museum doors. The recent issue of Artforum's focus on the museum concept — coming out in the same month as the release of this show — could be proof that the secret society running our nations museum's is hard at work behind the elusive curtain. Or is this a covert attempt in "mainstreaming" the art world by knowingly removing it from "hipster" society through the medium of national television?

More than likely Work of Art is simply a show that sets up artists to produce bad art while entertaining the voyeuristic population that enjoys watching fellow humans fail. This show feeds the joyful feelings gained from watching the pain of others, while simultaneously infuriating the art world citizens who never dreamt contemporary art would end up on reality TV. Of course, this could be a big joke by the artist Maurizio Cattelan, but his highbrow reputation would not be caught dead on such a show as this one. Unfortunately, Work of Art is just another reality show that follows a model that works — as the philosopher Augustine of Hippo claimed somewhere around the fifth century: attending the theatre is sadistic in that we gain joy from viewing the pain of the actors' scripted tragedies; however, this show is supposedly unscripted and real.

To fulfill a reality-show fix or dabble in a bit a sadism, watch Work of Art: The Next Great Artist on Bravo Wednesday nights at 1 a.m. and 9 p.m. CDT or see clips and interviews on the network's website.

-re-

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