Too Much of a Whisper

I could hardly believe it when a friend told me about a new reality show in which artists compete to be the Next Great Artist...Work of Art: Next Great Artist. I was even more surprised that I had arrived in her home on the day that the first episode was airing, that is today.

I have not owned a television since 1995. I know there are good shows being produced but they are few and not sufficiently enticing to require my paying for a television, cable. My experiences of reality television have been brief, mostly due to a horror at the requirement to produce such superficial representations of people's passions, the desire for a spouse, perfect soufle or sensible suit.

The first episode of Work of Art introduced the Executive Producer of the show, Sarah Jessica Parker. Her words of encouragement were offered as the Surprise of the episode, "Be brave. Be competitive. Be yourself." Words of wisdom. Truly. The dry summary of one of the judges: "See, she loves art and that is why we are all here." I could describe in detail other Great Moments or the competitors, the judges, but why bother?

Instead I want to express the confusion as to how to respond to art in a reality tv context. Am I glad that art is being offered as a form of entertainment? Shouldn't people become interested in art and if this is the way, then perhaps that is a good thing? But...NOOOOO! This is appalling. Watching the opening made my skin crawl. This has nothing to do with art. This is a bunch of people producing photographs, silkscreens, drawings, oil painting, watercolor painting, and more without ever discussing the mediums. The focus of the show is not art but the competition. The artists competition with each other is the basis for excitement on the show, not the work production. The biggest snafu on this episode was when the silkscreening balloon burst. Artists may be competitive, but the competition is largely internal and lonely in a studio far from other artists. The show is making little effort to introduce art. To be honest, I do not know what the show is attempting.

The judges mostly discussed the concept of the work the artists produced and little of the quality of production. Is that because they had to produce a portrait in thirteen hours so we should not consider the nature of the mediums? Or is it because the pieces reviewed could only be afforded 30 seconds of time? Paintings are "sexy" or "have a historical context" or present "good moves." One judge said that a portrait is a representation of a person, but the editing did not offer whether she elaborated on that remark. As one artist said to a judge in response to a criticism of her abstract painting, "It's too much of a whisper." Unfortunately, this show whispers nothing about art, indeed screams about nothing at all.