Hirshhorn Museum Delves Into Reality TV
Seven artists will compete in The Exhibit: Finding The Next Great Artist. The show will screen on MTV, right after Ru Paul's Drag Race.
The Exhibit contestant Jillian Mayer. Video still. Courtesy Paramount.
The Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington D.C. has thrown its weight behind a reality TV art competition.
The Exhibit: Finding The Next Great Artist offers artists the chance to compete for a US $100,000 prize and an exhibition at the Hirshhorn. Every week, they will create works that respond to a piece from the museum's collection and comment on a pressing issue.
The six-episode show was created in partnership with MTV Studios, Paramount, and the Smithsonian Channel.
Hirshhorn director Melissa Chiu will be the lead judge on the show, which will be hosted by MTV's Dometi Pongo.
Guest judges will include Pace Gallery artist Adam Pendleton; Kavi Gupta artist Abigail DeVille; critic and NFT-evangelist Kenny Schachter; Sarah Thornton, author of Seven Days in the Art World; Sammy Hoi, President of the Maryland Institute College of Art; digital strategist for the art world JiaJia Fei; and ex-NFL player and art collector Keith Rivers.
From thousands of applicants, seven artists were chosen to compete. The contestants are: Atlanta printmaker Jamaal Barber, Onondaga painter Frank Buffalo Hyde, Brooklyn sculptor Misha Kahn, Yale grad Clare Kambhu, Muslim-American multi-hyphenate Baseera Khan, filmmaker Jillian Mayer, and Chicago painter Jennifer Warren.
The first episode of The Exhibit will air at 9pm EST on Friday 3 March, and on the Smithsonian Channel on Tuesday 7 March. Subsequent episodes will air Fridays at 10pm on MTV.
In a four-minute trailer for the show, Pongo says, 'For the first time ever, accomplished artists from all over the country are coming to the Smithsonian Institution's Hirshhorn for a once in a lifetime opportunity to earn a career-defining exhibit and $100,000.'
Judges' comments include DeVille cackling, 'I'm always more interested in the ideas than the execution', and Chiu saying, 'it's not about the beautiful, the pretty, the gorgeous', to which Schacter counters, 'it's not not about that'.
Can engaging contemporary art be produced at the breakneck pace of a Project Runway series?
It's not, not possible. But the TV show has a better chance of being engaging than any of the individual works it hustles into existence. —[O]
