August 13th, 2010 | General, visual arts
It’s over and done with and Abdi, as the “Next Great Artist,” will exhibit his work at the Brooklyn Museum of Art. The check for $100,000.00, he says, will go to his mother. In ten years, however, or ten months or ten days, will anyone remember? Will anyone care? Just...
August 5th, 2010 | General, the world and Mother Nature, visual arts
Bill Powers led the Final Five into the woods. China Chow, draped in earth-toned cloak, presented them to “Nature herself” and gave instructions to incorporate something they found, something “without a pulse,” into their works. She also mentioned that this task would...
July 30th, 2010 | General, visual arts
I found a certain irony in Challenge 8. Last week I railed about the triviality of the challenges. I even weighed in on the subject on Jerry Saltz’s New York magazine blog where some of the more interesting discussions about the show take place. This week the Great...
July 18th, 2010 | General, Popular Culture, visual arts
In episode 6, a collaborative challenge was custom-designed for drama, an art school equivalent of shirts and skins in gym class. BRAVO producers determined that interpersonal tensions are entertaining in a way that the creation of art is not. In the first five...
July 9th, 2010 | General, Popular Culture, visual arts
I predict that Miles will take home the prize. I thought this might be the case as early as the first challenge and was moderately certain by the second. I will be genuinely surprised at this point if he loses. Miles will win, not because of Simon de Pury’s...
July 2nd, 2010 | General, Popular Culture, visual arts
Shock takes center stage in this episode of Work of Art—or at least it was supposed to. The celebrity du moment was Andres Serrano whose Piss Christ, a large-scale photograph of a crucifix immersed in urine, sent various members of the religious right and United...
