Gynomite!

Work of Art

July 31, 2010 at 10:48 am (art, television, Uncategorized) (bravo, work of art)

I started watching the reality show Work of Art for TV.com, but I haven’t had to write up anything for it in a while.  That hasn’t stopped me from absolutely inhaling it every single week, because it is fucking amazing.

The show is basically Project Runway for artists, in that they have a challenge each week, they have to complete a piece of art and present it at a gallery show, and then they get critiqued at the end.  What’s fascinating about the show is that unlike fashion designers, artistes get to throw out a bunch of huge obnoxious art terms and tell the camera that clearly their work was too avant garde for the plebeians when they are rejected.  Nothing brings out pretentiousness like the art world, and the show milks it without taking itself too seriously, which I adore.

I can’t tell if it was planned or not, but the most interesting dynamic in the show is the developing chasm between the self-trained “people who make art”.  The chasm is huge.

On one side you have conniving, smug, condescending Miles…

who suffers from OCD and has 1) gone to sleep on top of his piece during an art show, and 2) ejaculated onto a painting, among other stunts.  He critiques the other contestants works at judging, he refuses to participate in the challenges and instead just makes what he wants, he uses meaningless big words to describe his art, and the judges on the show just eat it up completely.  They think he’s genius, and so do the show’s producers, though probably for different reasons.

On the other side you have Abdi…

adorable painter who, every week, seems to freak out, question everything he knows, and then make it through by the skin of his teeth.  He’s willing to learn from other contestants, even when they hiss “That’s what makes it art” at him, and he always has a positive attitude.  He is us- fascinated and confused by art, but doing what he can to express himself.

This past week really highlighted the differences between the have-educations and the have-no-educations, when the artists were asked to split into pairs and make two works of art per pair that represent two opposing ideas, like heaven vs. hell or male vs. female.

OCD Miles was paired with Jaclyn, a subpar artist who seems to be obsessed with the Madonna/Whore concept, as she makes every challenge about her nudity, and then complains that she is very private and people only value her for her body.  She coasts on her use of sexuality in every single thing she creates.  For the challenge, Miles convinces her that she should take a nude portrait of herself masturbating.  He says many big words to show her how that would be artistic.

Meanwhile, Mark, an overweight commercial artist who often makes fun of other’s pretentiousness, is paired with a woman named Peregrine, and after they discuss a large scar that Mark has on his stomach from a medical emergency years ago, Peregrine convinces Mark to take a topless photo of himself so that they can both use it as a base.  She wants to use his scar as the inspiration for heaven and hell.  Though uncomfortable, Mark does it, and they both end up inadvertently covering up the scar that was the inspiration and instead making their pieces about a fat shirtless guy.  Simplistic, sure, but so is painting yourself getting off.

So what happens at judging?  The four male judges (the one female judge was away) all go on and on about how brave and intoxicating Jaclyn’s piece is, and how amazing, and wow, whereas Mark’s piece is dismissed as simple and messy.  That’s right, because what’s avant garde in society is women being nude.  The grace and humility of a fat man being naked is a dime a dozen.

When host China Chow sends fat boy Mark home, she is openly crying, and when I looked into why that might be, The Stranger says “she was crying because, as she said later, when Jaclyn exposes her mainstream body, she gets applause; when Mark shows his less-often-pictured body type, he gets sent home.”  I haven’t been able to find records of her actually saying this, but I gotta say, it made me love her a hell of a lot more.

This show is fascinating, both in how they try to deal with what makes art interesting rather than commercial versus the idea that the show itself has to be commercial, and plus how intensely annoying artists can be.  Vulnerability, it seems, is only acceptable if it looks pretty and is presented with the right art words cushioning you from actually experiencing it.  Team Mark!