Thursday, July 8, 2010

TV! Work of Art


Dear readers, this week's episode of Work of Art was one of the silliest reality TV episodes I have ever seen. First off, the challenge was bizarro--drive through Manhattan in an Audi to the big Audi show room, and then make a piece of art about your journey, or Audi, or Manhattan, or something. A friend of mine has an Audi, and it's a beautiful car, so I think you might be able to make Audi art. Here's the challenge issue, though: When you issue a poorly defined challenge that is also based on a sponsor, what you get is usually doo doo. It would seem that fine artists would rather create freely, with no restrictions. The problem is they try to address the challenge, but don't really understand the challenge, and don't really create freely either. You get doo doo. Unfocused but hopeful doo doo.
Now, let's talk about the winning entry, because this woman is making me homicidal. Jaclyn, the Barbie artist, who wears very tight, very short clothing and usually features semi-nude photos of herself. She was standing in the Audi Forum in Manhattan, a window-fronted building full of beautiful cars AND the crew and cameras shooting the show. Men were looking into the building. She automatically deduced that all of these men were looking at HER. Ugh. She felt so vulnerable. Whatevs. Delusional. Self-important. We've all known people like this. So, she took photos of these men, blurred their faces a little, put some suspect looking white goo on the images, added some reflective mylar bits, and she won. I don't get it. The art critics were going berserk over her "negation of the male gaze." No, she's a sponge for the male gaze. Admit what you are. Make art from there. I detest her. I'm sorry.
Also, second runner up Miles, with his OCD performance art schtick, sleeping at Audi, burbling about like some Little Prince knock off. I don't care for him or his art either. His work smacks of "cleverness," and I don't mean that as a compliment. It's one thing when a TV commercial for beer is clever. Shouldn't art be more than that?
Jamie went home this week. She was the one who kept talking about her ultra right wing religious stance. Honestly, everything she made looked like middle school art class, but she seemed nice enough.
I'm still pulling for Abdi. Everything he creates is dynamic and compelling. And he's not playing some sort of manufactured role to get more air time. He's arting his heart out, bless him.

The meh factor of this week's art was more shocking than last week's "shocking" art.

2 comments:

  1. oh i so agree about jacklyn she needs to go

    happy thursday
    loveclay
    http://loveclayblog.blogspot.com

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  2. TOTALLY. I thought that Peregrine's Audi word play was clever and that Nicole's suspension piece was potentially interesting. I'm afraid that Miles is precisely the sort of boy I would have daydreamed about in college.

    ps: can I use "sponge for the male gaze" in a future scholarly article if I cite you?

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