Art World Reality Show, Bravo or Bust

The New York Times reports that casting has begun for a new Sarah Jessica Parker-produced art reality show, billed as doing for the art world what Project Runway and Top Chef have done for fashion and chefs. But what was that exactly? Baby I’ll make you a star (while humanizing/humiliating you)? Show the hard work behind the good work? Or throw a bunch of gimmicky makework projects at a range of artists carefully selected for a predisposition to drama?

This has been done before, with Jeffrey Deitch’s “Artstar.” If that doesn’t ring a bell, that’s because it was on the obscure and now defunct Gallery HD channel available only via Dish. One might expect Deitch to do it. But the very problem with reality tv as a predictor of designer/chef/artist potential in the real world, given that tv favors personality over talent, seems to have been embraced by Deitch outright:

“We certainly were thinking about … who would have a personality that would project. … It’s not that different from the way we look at artists who we want to get involved in the gallery. It’s the whole personality. And generally people who, in their way, have a very distinct personality are often the more interesting artist.”

Ah. This explains a lot. But do we have to encourage the media focus on the naughty artists who say, make art with bodily fluids (Warhol, Serrano, Snow) and/or behave badly. I pity art schools who are going to have to deal with a generation that gets its idea of the artist’s life and a life of art work from a reality television show.

The failed Artstar aside, it’s hard to imagine that there could be any serious consideration of this new show from inside the art world. And I can’t imagine it having positive impacts on on growing the audience/collector base for art or even how John Q. Public interacts with art. Could a camera linger on a finished piece to let the viewing audience think about it, for example? For how long?

Oh, but it is television show, after all, not a public program to benefit the arts or the artists for that matter.

What do you think?

POSTED: July 20th, 2009 | AUTHOR: lisa | FILED UNDER: art | TAGS: art | No Comments »

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