Bravo's Work of Art 2

In this latest episode of Bravo's new , art inspired reality show, Work of Art, the photographer Mark Velasquez was eliminated.  Being the only photographer of this show I was hoping his work would be better and he would last. Photography has always been the step child of the fine art world and unfortunately, Mark didn't help the cause.

With a BFA from Cornish College of the Arts focusing on drawing, sculpture and performance art, I expected his work to be more "artistic" and less commercial and obvious. He taught himself photography and by looking at his portfolio on Bravo's site his work is good but not inspired.
He is the perfect example of what I said about this show from the start, there is  no heart in the artwork.

Ross Bleckner fromInfo  the website The Daily Beast said the show "Brought back many memories.
Unfortunately, they were all memories of my junior and senior year in high school."
 I have to agree, it is so contrived and formulated that it really gives the art world a black eye. Most artists create to express some inner desire or demon they need to expose to the world. Well at least that is true in my case. But, art is passion, it is desire, it is showing the world something it has never seen or in a way that it has never seen. Not this, "here is your assignment for today, take $100 and do to it" approach.

Bleckner puts it like this, "The show doesn't make you want to be an artist because "making it," according to this formula, requires competitiveness and pandering to a small cabal of teacher-judges, the so-called experts, who bark "time's up!"

Just in case you are thinking that he is just some critic busting on the show, Ross Bleckner is a well-known artist whose works have been shown in several institutions throughout the world, including MoMA, MoCA, Astrup Fearnley, Museo National Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, and the Whitney Museum of American Art. He is also recognized as the youngest artist ever to have a solo exhibition at the Guggenheim Museum in New York.


I think this show will actually hurt museum patronage becasue of all the art bullshit.
Listen to how the artists explain their work, or how the judges talk about it. It's all bullshit to make normal people afraid to try and express themselves artistically or try and view art in museums. This is the reason so many people don't go to art galleries. They feel they are not "getting" the work so why bother. But if people would go and experience the works in our galleries and museums they will find that they will appreciate them on their own level, whatever that may be.

Don't let shows like this stop you from going to your local art museum or gallery. Here, in Philadelphia, we are lucky to have one of the countries foremost museums and a few areas loaded with smaller art galleries.

So where does the show go from here? The final challenge is coming up and I am curious to see what art speak will come out of Mile's mouth and if Jaclyn will take her clothes off again. But of course she is really shy about her body.  And what about Peregrine, I wonder what bizarre outfit she'll wear to show she is an artist.

I know I am slamming this show as I feel it really doesn't help bring art to the masses. It's one thing to do a competition about making a dress, it's another to create a real work of art. 

Only a few episodes left in season 1, I wonder if there will be a season 2?