Thursday, December 22, 2011

The future of art in America.

I did it. I don’t know why I did it, but I did it nonetheless. Last night I gave up an entire hour of my life watching the grand finale of Bravo TV’s “Work of Art,” a frightening reality show competition that’s based on the age-old premise “shit sells.” The final three contestants appear below.
And now I’d like to post a representation of the finale’s artwork (a term I use loosely here) to demonstrate how lame, pretentious and infantile this program actually is. The lack of talent displayed here makes “Dancing with the Stars” look like the Joffrey Ballet.
Young strung clotheslines across the gallery and pinned up a collection of his late father’s shirts festooned with snapshots of dad while he was dying. On the floor, bottom right, is a little pile of dirt with a bowling trophy in the middle. For sculptural appeal he also built a red and green phone booth.
Sara’s show consisted of a white birdcage with a lot of paper airplanes flying out and underwear made of human hair.
Kymia — who actually won last night — displayed three crap-filled graves and a helmet made of metal feathers. She also showed two watercolors with dirt glued to them. The one on the left is a dead body in the ground and the one on the right is a boat with feet on the sail. The judges were so ecstatic they wet their pants and Kymia went home with $100,000 and a guaranteed private show at the Brooklyn Museum. I had such a headache I took two extra-strength Tylenol.

There you have it ... the future of art in America. Graves, clotheslines, paper airplanes and bowling trophies. God help us.

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