Previously: Someone (Sarah Jessica Parker, I'm looking at you) decided the way to find a great artist was through reality TV. All the great artists of the world cried and/or rolled over in their graves. Miles won. Amanda was sent packing. There are still 13 of them competing for some money and a show at the Brooklyn Art Museum (which angry readers have informed me is TOTALLY A BIG DEAL!). So, okay, whatever. I'm obviously ignorant about both art and New York. The women get ready in the morning and bond. Sort of. Basically, Nao is ready to come back from her place in the bottom last week. She interviews that the rest of the artists are "children." In the guys' room, Miles can't sleep because his OCD is getting in the way. He doesn't think having immunity matters. Erik wants to bust ass this week, since he was in the bottom three last time.
China and Simon greet them in the workroom, apparently so China can reintroduce Simon, who takes them on a walk to tell them about their challenge. They walk through the streets of New York. Miles yawns a lot. They walk until they find a big red garage door. Behind it is a huge pile of electronics: VCRs, TVs, video game systems, fans, and all other types of used junk. Miles interviews that his OCD makes him want to organize it all by date and color. Hee. Simon introduces this week's guest judge, mixed-media sculptor Jon Kessler. Abdi tells us Jon is "the man." That's high artistic praise. So, the challenge is to make a three-dimensional sculpture from the used electronics graveyard. Jaime Lynn (whose first name I spelled wrong last week; I want to blame the show for getting it wrong the first time, but it was probably me) does not think that's good, since she's a painter. But Trong's happy about it. They have 30 minutes to dig through the electronics and then $100 to spend at a hardware store. And a few days to work. More than "usual," which is weird since it's a brand new show.
Their 30 minutes starts, and they dig and dig and dig through the junk. Nicole finds a huge classic television and knows what she wants to do. Judith is attracted to tubes, wires and colorful and shiny objects. Miles literally goes and sleeps in a corner, which John think is ridiculous. Miles interviews about how important conceptual art is, so he decided to make a piece about sleeping. Hardware store: Miles orders concrete. He tells us he was selling clothes at a consignment store to make money before coming here. Peregrine is really at home in hardware stores and with makeup. I'm not sure what that means. Abdi's buying spray foam and plaster to make two half-human/half-machine figures. Nicole buys wood, and says she loves this kind of work. Jaclyn's a traditional painter so she has a good idea but is nervous about the execution.
They head back to their giant workroom and get to work. Nao tries to take some of Ryan's supplies. She's making a photo collage mounted to one of the televisions, so she's taking a bunch of skyline photos. John's using an 8-track player, which has something to do with a guy he had a crush on when he was a kid. Judith's making hers about age, since they're taking old things and giving them new life. Trong observes that Jaclyn's building what looks like an aquarium. She says she doesn't know what she's doing. Trong doesn't either, but thinks maybe she's going to put a TV inside and then water. Nicole laughs that Jaclyn can't put glue on a surface. Then Jaclyn asks Ryan for help, and he interviews that he helped because "I have a ton of caulk left." But you know what it sounded like, so... dirty. He helps her, but keeps saying, "Try not to touch the caulk, because you're going to, like, dilute the caulk." John tells Ryan he really knows how to work the caulk. They're all giggly about it, like me. Nicole tells Ryan she's making hers a comment on landfills and consumerism or something, so he gets intimidated and smashes a shelf or whatever that's part of his "art." He doesn't know what he's doing, but he's using a smashed shelf, I guess.
Abdi's making "two child figures that are being overrun by these electronics that are raising them, that almost birthed them." Ryan's still not sure what his concept is, but he's thinking of images and words: "zebra, vacuum, tornado." Mark's making an altar to electronics, since we treat them like religion these days. Jaime Lynn's not smashing her objects like everyone else, but is trying to preserve what they are. She's painting giant flowery crap that looks like scrapbooking logos to me, and placing a vacuum in it. I don't know art, but I do know that's ugly. She tells Erik she was thinking of a bored housewife, and he tells her it's a neat idea. Trong's painting the TVs white. He says it's three TVs watching another TV. Erik loves it. Peregrine saved a tiny TV but doesn't seem to be making anything. Erik compares himself to MacGyver. He's making a sculpture of a post-apocalyptic corpse. He says he got in a motorcycle accident and damaged his brain, which is when he became obsessed with making art. He loses his train of thought and blames the accident. Man, it would be nice to have an excuse.
Simon comes in to check on everyone. He seems hesitant about Trong's, but tells him to go for it. He checks in on Nicole, who's making a tomb to bury her objects. He likes it, and sees it as a reflection about time. Nicole says she values his opinion, "because he has seen more art than a lot of people on this earth." Judith's using cable instead of a TV set or something else big. Simon tells her she has plenty to do. Simon thinks Abdi's project is quite an undertaking and isn't sure he can finish it in time. Abdi's working outside using spray foam, but it's cheap and doesn't work well. He's pissed at himself for buying the cheaper brand, but he says he's going to figure out how to make it anyway.
Miles is using toxic chemicals to screen print an electrical map on a "bed," which is the hardest place to sleep ever, I guess. Everyone else is annoyed that he's trying to kill them with toxic chemicals that are spelling up the workroom. He adds a fiberglass mattress and two concrete assholes to have an icon of tension. Erik thinks it's cool to watch people work, but he doesn't understand Miles. Cut to Miles admiring his giant concrete asshole. Abdi doesn't have the spray foam, so he has to use plaster and make only one character. And he says it will still be a miracle if he finishes it. Midnight rolls around, and they go home.
At their house the morning, the guys talk about what they have left to do. Abdi's going to eat up all of the extra time they have for this challenge. Ryan's sculpture is just a pile of junk that he's pouring paint over. Judith's trying to figure out what to do with her cords. She wants to put them inside a fan screen and let them try to escape. Nicole's pretty confident (and, I know nothing, but she probably should be; hers is the best artistically and conceptually, as far as I can see). Abdi's building his sculpture out of paper and tape before covering it in plaster. He says it's a self-portrait, because he grew up with all of this technology. Trong says his is going to be called "WWTFD?" For "What Would Trong Fucking Do?" I presume. John's worried about Jaime Lynn's very literal, "dead" piece. Mark loves Erik's corpse, and Erik blocked off some words on the warning label, so it reads, "Warning: This is a shock and should be." Mark loves it.
Jaclyn's not happy with hers, since the aquarium she made won't hold water, and she wants to start over, but can't at this point. Ryan says he's not going to win, but he wants to be around long enough to learn. They talk about how smart Miles is. day is the day of the gallery show. They all head in to work. One of Trong's TVs says, "I hate reality TV." He doesn't have that much left to do. Mark asks Ryan to cuddle since all he has left to do is clean up. Everyone else is calm, and Abdi's running around, as John says, "like a maniac." He might not finish. Frantic, frantic, frantic. Jaclyn's still working. Time's up and Abdi's not quite done. He just needed five more minutes to clean up some scratches and stuff. He's worried about how his piece will be received. Commercials, including another weird mid-commercial bit about Jaclyn getting glue in her hair and Miles telling her she'll have no choice but to cut it out. Then she freaks, and he lies that she won't have to cut it out. Wow, I'm glad they didn't cut that entirely.
Gallery show. The artists are lined up across from judges Jeanne, Jerry and Bill, plus China, Simon and Jon Kessler. China reminds the artists what the challenge was and then opens up the gallery to the public. Miles takes a nap on his bed (his piece is called "Worst Place") for an hour while everyone looks at the art. Erik doesn't get performance art, but Jaclyn thinks he's a genius. Jaime Lynn thinks her living room scene (called "Death of the Family Appliances") is awesome, because she didn't just smash stuff and stick it on a random sculpture on a pedestal. And her vacuum and lamp are actually removing the color from everything else, which is cool. The judges comment on the barbed wire Mark made for his altar piece, "Dia De Los Televisions." Peregrine's piece, "A Conversation Between A Widow And Herself," consists of two mini-TVs facing each other with some sort of netting over them. She thinks it's sweet and quiet compared with everyone else's bigger, louder pieces. Nicole's "Tomb" has thirty objects in it. Judith's "Ain't No Grave," is a bunch of bits and pieces, which she sees as a landscape. Ryan's messy sculpture is called "Zebra Vacuum Spiral" (what happened to tornado?!), and he's describing it to a young hot girl who's clearly not a judge. [Ryan likes talking to the hot girls, doesn't he? - Zach] Jaclyn didn't end up with water in her aquarium, called "Transmit," so the TV is wrapped in a plastic garbage bag half-full of water inside the aquarium, with a rope attached.
John's colored a bunch of appliances in bright colors. He still says the 8-track player was the inspiration, and that he made these old objects sexy again. His piece is called "New Stock." The judges think he's giving them "little presents." Erik's "Untitled" is a sculpture of a futuristic corpse. It even has a penis. Trong made his little TVs face each other, all white with colored screens. It's called, "What Would Tom Friedman Do?" One of the screens says "WWTFD." The others say, "I hate reality TV," "I'm a P.C.," and "It's so fake." Jerry describes it as "self-referentiality... up the wing-wong." Nao's "Mama" is an opened-up TV or something with photographs of cityscapes coming out of it. She says she's opened it up for a new dimension. Abdi's happy that his ("Tube") appears to be defying gravity, since it looks like a lightweight sculpture with a massive TV for its head.
After the show, the judges keep these artists behind "for the crit": Judith, Miles, Nicole, Trong, Jaime and Abdi. The rest of them get to leave, and there's a lot of relief on Erik's face, for sure. They talk to Nicole first. She explains that our culture keeps discarding stuff, so it's a comment on consumerism. The judges think it's romantic and sad. They talk to Judith , who tells them she didn't have a plan, but she says the cords and currents started meaning something to her. She goes on and on and gets edited way down. The judges think it's crazy, but is more of a drawing than a sculpture, and is too ambiguous. Jaime explains that her appliances are frozen in time, and says there's a lot of her in this piece, since she embraces the cheesy. She tells them to look at her: "I look like a 70-year-old mother of the bride or something." Hey, at least she knows it. The judges think it's the classic painter trying to make a sculpture and not seeing these things as objects. Jerry thinks she's not making art. None of them are engaged or curious about her piece.
Miles is . He tells them that he was inspired by a lack of sleep to make the most difficult place to sleep. They love that he activated the work by sleeping in it, and somehow they even love the buttholes (which I do not get at all). They think it's theatrical and fragile, which is difficult to achieve. Trong's , talking about his generic couch potatoes. He says he's in it, and then tells them that the Tom Friedman reference is an inside art reference. They all said they learned nothing about him in this. Miles raises his hand to tell Trong the piece is distractingly boring, even though the ideas were there. One of the judges asks if this piece would be in a retrospective of Trong's work, and Trong says he's not sure. Moving on to Abdi. He explains that he wanted to show a kid who was more a product of the media than of their parents. They see it as a self-portrait of him, and loved the way he handled the materials. In the back room, Judith says that "what was said to Trong was over-the-top harsh." She's obviously talking to Miles, who is already asleep on the other couch.
The judges talk about how great the show was, because most of them made it so personal. In case we didn't get it: They loved Nicole, Abdi and Miles (though Bill thought the anuses were overkill). They didn't like Trong (insider art jokes didn't show them how much he knows), Jaime or Judith. Bill thought the other judges were too nice to Judith, who didn't explain what she did at all. They've made up their minds, and bring Miles, Nicole and Abdi out. China AGAIN tells them what the challenge was. She says the winner will receive immunity. And the winner is... Miles. Again. He made a true work of art. It's actually pretty cool that he won despite having immunity. Miles interviews if they'll keep giving him free food, free beer and art supplies, he'll stay and keep doing this as long as they'll let him.
Now for the bottom three. China: "It's been said that good art is not what it looks like, but how it makes us feel. Your work didn't make us feel anything." They tell Jaime she gave them theatre and design, but no sculpture, which was the challenge. Trong took four TVs and gave them four TVs, which wasn't enough. Judith's piece had energy, but lacked direction completely. China says one of them is leaving tonight, and that person is Trong. "Your work of art didn't work for us." He interviews that he's been a professional artist for a long time, so he's going to take these other opinions, but keep his dignity. He hugs everyone goodbye and then cleans up his workroom.
week: China has surprises for the artists, who love it, judging by the "awesome, awesome, awesome" and "best day of my life" comments. Jaclyn does a partially nude photo shoot, and Nao isn't loving it. A judge tells someone it's not a good thing to make your public feel stupid, and another one tells someone it was a "complete failure."
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DeAnn, a writer and editor in Portland, Oregon, thinks a semi-famous artist I've never heard of like Trong will be just fine. You can contact her at twopmodmars@gmail.com.