And the prize for the dumbest idea for 2009 (so far) goes to Bravo TV for their latest corny reality star show currently untitled but aimed at hitting our screens with the same daft format you might recognise as Project Runway. It’s simply entitled ‘Art Project’ right now and here’s how they begin their pitch at their casting page:-
‘How do you go from struggling, emerging or even semi-established artist to selling a complete show for $198 million? It’s a big art world out there, but maybe this is one place to start!’
Now some of you out there might be thinking, ‘Hey Paul, what’s the beef? An ‘Art Idol’ TV format is a great idea!’. Well, apart from the fact that reality shows are the bain of modern society (I really need to use that as a title for an exhibition 
, the fact is that art is not something you can package and promote on family friendly prime time TV. Sure you could censor everything that is even the tiniest bit subversive, you could censor the nude works, you could dumb down the choice of artists until there’s nothing left but a dozen interior designers, portraiture painters and one freaky sculptor who constructs scale models of famous landmarks out of cow dung (just to inject a little light-hearted humour into a deathly dull chunk of televisual detritus – and of course to make the audience feel a little more superior), but at the end of the day TV, its program makers, the medium itself are slaves to the advertising moguls. If the sponsors don’t like it it won’t make it onto the screen, end of.
As for the production companies behind this bombshell of an idea, Magical Elves and Pretty Matches, well here’s one of the artistic geniuses behind the format, none other than Sarah Jessica Parker. I, as many (I am sure) can’t stand the woman, I couldn’t abide Sex In The City either, not merely because I am a man, but the blatant and excessive promotion of so-called glamour and sexual frustration amongst American career women didn’t really leave much to absorb. Especially when people like me want nothing more than to tear down the walls of conformity, replace capitalism with a permacultural system and bring the pyramid of autocratic power to its knees.
I’m not a member of the Illuminati, I don’t work for them, if I had a boss and they had a boss and they had a boss, none of them would be ‘in on the act’ to feed this B.S to the masses until the last sprog the earth’s resources could bare had dropped and the skies turned to fire. Famous or not, rich or not, there’s no excuse to keep on spouting crap just because some trailer trash dumb ass ‘watching their pictures’ dreams of being famous for no other reason than they’re feeling lonely and unappreciated.
Celebrity is a foul creation, it’s like we’re constantly being badgered by the media to take another poor soul into our arms, pump out the cash, listen to the lecturing, hectoring tone of inane drivel and gaze longingly at whatever face they choose to slam dunk on the screen. Fame is a disease and its catching, but at least there are a few ways to escape the hounding global views of the mainstream, the regressive politics, the destructive nature of capitalism, the mismanagement of perception and reality, and one of them is art.
Art isn’t a nice skirt, it isn’t a kid singing like Tom Jones or Jacko, it isn’t a bunch of youths in masks break dancing to a remix of a Coco Pops commercial. Okay maybe it can be, but it doesn’t have to be, being an idol used to take a lot more work than a dozen appearances on TV and a nod and a wink from Simon Cowell, at one point, way back when life and even media to a certain extent accept that there’s a natural course to fame. You do something spectacular, you change people’s lives, you excel in talent beyond your contemporaries, you make the world a different place to live in, not particularly better or worse, just different, and you have your taste, they make documentaries about you, you do a few interviews, but in the main you keep on doing whatever the hell it was that made you so well known (and if you’re lucky admired) – only it has to get better and better. But that’s the past, now it’s all up to the wisdom of the likes of Sarah Jessica Parker, the world renowned art critic and her cronies, I can’t wait.
Imagine if their line-up had been the likes of Pablo Picasso, Andy Warhol, Marcel Duchamp, Vincent Van Gogh, Banksy, Damien Hirst, well just about anyone with a place in the arts, what would the judges think? Picasso can’t draw, Warhol is uncooperative, Van Gogh needs a psychiatrist, Banksy is a vandal, Hirst is a butcher… There’s no way that the mainstream can screw art up the way they’ve managed to screw up fashion, music, damn they’ve even started reviving Variety acts with the world franchise ‘(Insert Country)’s Got Talent’.
Many years ago I saw a flick on the TV, it was kind of corny, the budget was rather slim, the music dated, but the message got through loud and clear. It’s called "Phantom of the Rock Opera". A musical genius gets ripped off, his face is deformed by a vinyl press, his music is raped and pillaged for the sake of making a quick buck, and even his girlfriend gets screwed by The Devil. In this case it’s a midget with a rather serious skin problem. The point is if there’s anything out there that even resembles evil incarnate it has to be TV executives, they know their industry is dying, the Internet has made sure people don’t watch it half as much as they did, they probably spend more time telling each other on Twitter and Facebook what they’re watching to be honest. So TV has to fight back, the government won’t let them use nudity (bar Italy and certain South American countries)who keep everyone watching by enforcing semi and full nudity in almost all of their programming), and so they rely on violence, they can’t promote drug use and so they show cops drinking beer and firing off blanks at master criminals. They can’t keep the audience awake with intellectual debate and so they throw money at them, or at least some of them, and make sure they jump through hoops to get it. TV has been ****** up for years.
The BBC have a government remit too, their public funding is supposed to ensure that they provide original and engaging programming that no other channel can offer. They’ve failed – abysmally. They just offer less money on their game shows and throw in the odd documentary about the life of a badger, or bin men in Leeds for good measure. They still offer Soaps, Eastenders for example, although they have a heap of medical dramas that aren’t far off. They fill the days with cookery and DIY and have almost squeezed out all the serious journalism just in case the government doesn’t like what they’ve reported. The government are BBC’s sponsor, and we foot the bill. But back to the glitzy start studded heights of American TV, and just what’s going to happen to this planet in the end.
One day we’ll wake up and every single one of us will be ‘chipped’, we won’t see this reality (or rather what remains of it), we’ll see a bigger, better, brighter world, and we will all be famous. It doesn’t matter how, we’ll just be famous. We won’t need to watch TV because it’ll be projected directly into our minds, and we won’t need to worry about what’s on next because it will be us, living our spectacular lives. However in truth, behind the façade of plasma and colour will be another story. We’ll be eating soy beans or reconstituted feces or even each other. We’ll live in tiny grey boxes and our bodies will be nothing more than a sack spliced by a spinal column. All nature, all expression, all freedom, everything that makes life worth living will be gone. But it won’t matter because we’re all going to be famous, and that’s all that counts these days. Screw you Jessica.
Loved your review of project artway. You would be the perfect candidate for representing your art with your unique vision. Perhaps your opinion could educate the public about art. I plan to watch this show unfold. The art world usually is only open to those with all the proper contacts, sometimes talent aside. I wouldn’t mind the challenge of being cast & being presented with a art/design concept to articulate.
I love art in the public eye. Art is for all. kellyannart.com | sf abstract painter.
Thanks Kelly but I really don’t think they’d approve even if I did want to be part of Project Artway. If the production team and panel had a serious arts background maybe so but as it stands I somehow doubt they’ll consider many artists out there for prime time exposure. The fact is that TV is incredibly conservative – I’d say 30 years behind the net. Still I think you might have a good chance – at least you wouldn’t be getting into any slanging matches like me lol. Take it easy. Cool work btw!