'With Work Of Art: The Next Great Artist', Bravo dared to go where no television network had gone before: a reality show about art, really? Right away there was plenty of resistance: artists competing in quick-and-dirty challenges on reality TV for instant stardom seemed precisely opposed to the artistic spirit. But after a few episodes the whole show turned into a kind of performance art piece in itself: shocking, engrossing, and bizarre. Spurts of artistic genius were juxtaposed with self-indulgent 'art drivel,' from both contestants and judges.
The show reached a state of art-in-itself when judge and New York Magazine art critic Jerry Saltz started blogging weekly about the show and responding to comments and questions from audience members and ousted contestants. WOA became a flurry of opinions, questions, and criticisms from a mixture of 'high and low' sources from which there truly was no outside. Regardless of whether the winning contestant, Abdi Farrah, is truly "the next great artist," the show achieved its hefty goal of making art relatable and debatable.
The show is back for its second season with fourteen new contestants, including a Yale art school grad, a Marily Mintner student and everything in between. The judges will be Jerry Saltz, Simon de Pury, Bill Powers and host China Chow. Tune in for a not-always-flattering-but-certainly-entertaining look at the contemporary art scene in all its glory. While the show certainly has more than its fair share of haters, isn't controversy necessary for any great work of art?