Bravo’s Work of Art Doesn’t work for Anyone
The Cast of Bravo's Work of Art
At some point last winter my mother sent me a link to the BravoTV casting website. She suggested that I audition for Sarah Jessica Parker’s new show “Work of Art”. In my post-college waitressing haze I decided that it seemed like and interesting opportunity. I scrambled to get my portfolio together. As a performance artist who originally intended to be a marine biologist, much of my early work went undocumented. I awoke on the morning of the audition, portfolio still not exported as a PDF from InDesign, frustrated at my inability to complete and print the portfolio in time to drive from Northampton, Ma to NYC. ADHD be cursed! I went for a bike ride.
The first episode aired on June 9th and I missed it as well. My frustrations at my lack of professional progress came to a head after the death of my grandfathers in January. He was the whole reason I stayed in Massachusetts… him and universal healthcare. By June 1st I sold most of my possessions and moved down here by the seat of my pants. Jobless, friendless and TV-less I watched the first episode of Work of Art online and was relieved that my slacker-hood had saved me the pain of possibly making it onto the show.
Critics across the board have panned the show and it’s attempt to subjugate the aspirations of high art to the format of what may be the lowest of the low-art, reality TV. Mind you, I say this not as an art snob but as a consumer, nay, a lover of both the high and low. Ross Bleckner of The Daily Beast likened the experience of watching the show to being back in high school and I am inclined to agree. Daniel Fienberg of The Fein Print accused it of being “more like a pop art prank than like a search for a real artist.” The program’s sister shows, Top Chef and Project Runway (now on LifeTime) have enjoyed success; they too often display the difficulties of reducing the creative process to a time constrained competition format.
In an interview for NYFA.org Nao Bustamante described her experience with the show and her views on the limits of the format. She likened the judging process to her experiences showing animals at the state fair and described the shared studio experience as simply “awful”. Although she did not dig her teeth into and rip the show a new art hole she did note that over the course of filming the opinions of the artists often directly countered the decisions of the judges. I’m not sure anyone could successfully argue against the total subjectivity of art. I believe that this program, noble intentions aside, has done little to bring art into the realm of the laymen and has only served to further bolster the notion of art as a competitive elitist field in which the success of it’s aspirants is at the merciless whim of a few people with deep pockets and small ideas.
Written by Emily Russell for Ico Gallery
New Ansel Adams Negatives Inspire Questions?
Ansel Adams Lost Images
In an age when images are stored as a series of zeros and ones the alleged discovery of long lost Ansel Adams negatives inspires the question, How many zeros may be added to the value of an actual physical negative?
Mathew Adams disputes the authenticity of the negatives and raises long debated issues surrounding intent. Mathew Adams asserts:
“ It should be remembered that while there is a good deal of creativity and purpose in the negative, the print is the expression of the artist’s intent. It is the print that carries the value.”
While I am not questioning the value of the print, I would like to ask that you, the reader, to comment on where intent lies.
When a photographer marches into the wilderness to capture its beauty they do so with not just purpose and creativity but also intent. Does more intent truly lie in the act of printing? When one sits down to edit and print their images they of course do so with intent and discard or neglect to print images they do not find satisfactory. Are we to then discount the value of the images that were not printed or can we find value in the fact that they were not printed? Clearly we can assume that an image Adams printed fit into his aesthetic ideas. From Adams unprinted negatives can we infer his reasoning and learn more about why the artist may not have selected to print certain images?
Due to the destruction of 5,000 plates in the 1937 darkroom fire we may never know if these images, along with others, would have been printed and displayed. The scientific evidence seems compelling but is it enough? The whole situation reminds me of the 2006 Harry Moses Documentary Who the #$&% Is Jackson Pollock, in which the provenance, rather the lack thereof, of a Pollock-esq painting purchased at a yard sale is explored.
Ico Gallery Blog 
leave a comment