Episode Report Card Jacob Clifton: A+ | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT In The Pink
By Jacob Clifton | Season 1 | Episode 4 | Aired on 06.30.2010
Previously: The absolutely repellent Judith's pants-shitting tantrum left even Nao's rampant narcissism looking classy by comparison, while Miles tricked the cutest boy in school into asking Trong to Prom, just so he could douse him in pig's blood before setting a pack of wild dogs loose on his family. This was viewed by the judges as a truly transgressive comment on the New York art world, and was captured on film for his exhibition later this year at MoMA entitled For Aspies Who Have Considered Suicide When A Nap Would Prove Sufficient, in which the artist will sit brazenly naked -- skimming classic literature to himself and humming contentedly at the brilliance of it all -- while a queue of viewers stand across the room wondering if maybe he can score them some Adderal.
Proud Pussy and that awful hipster dude proved themselves illiterate, Abdi can do no wrong, and Pomegranate sent herself into yet another Etsy-frenzy. Erik's white-trash meltdown came booming closer and closer to fruition, while his brother in not-belonging-here Mark nearly won with his usual balance of commercial appeal and total lack of a point of view. In the end, he lost to Quiet Gay John's total adorableness and ladder to the sun, while Judith was sent packing for hocking a loogie at this entire thing once again. Don't let the door hit your old pussy on the way out, you complete asshole.
Next morning, Proud Pussy's doing uncommitted crunches on the floor and Nao's wearing a couch formerly owned by Ambrose Bierce as a nightshirt, completing the look with a small black plastic bag on her stupid head. This is actually a performance piece called Not Before My Second Cup: A California Raisins Costume Remembers, which is meant to provoke questions about the treatment of free-market shade-grown coffee suppliers, as well as conversations about how totally interesting Nao is.
While Abdi thinks about all the art he's going to be arting, John picks through his collection of American Apparel shades of clothing, and Miles asks if he can help him pick out the best costume for the day. Genuine concern, or act of sabotage? Considering John's temporary outfit is a bright pink tankini from Muscle Beach, maybe a bit of both. I know if I was working what Miles is twerking with, I'd be sleeping chastely beside John at this point each night, just to get inside his head. Also because I imagine he is very comforting to be around, and Miles needs some kind of comfort. Or help, I guess, is the word we're looking for.
Miles tells us that Judith being gone has finally given him that night of rest he's so desperately needed since... I'm assuming fifth grade. (You know, in 2008.) But without Miles skitzing out about her obsessive over-attention, what will he worry about? Last week definitely gave the impression she was up his ass pretty much constantly -- for art-school reasons that are quite easy to understand, if hard to acknowledge -- and the almost tearful joy with which he has realized Judith's leaving means she'll never bother him again... It's something I have a lot of compassion for.
I'm not an artist, but in similar situations I've been that kind of target -- of the Naos rather than the Judiths -- and I can't say he had it easy, but can you imagine if Nao had been the one? Gathering him under her skirts like the Sugar Plum Fairy, drawing him into long conversations of sexuality and gender and What Art Means, mentoring him to death with her breasts and opinions? All Judith wanted was to micromanage his eating and bathroom schedule, and explain her unhinged theories while he cried.
Ryan stands at the microwave, letting its rays do to his balls what his tiny pants aren't already doing, and admits his plan to "make another piece of shit today." It's good that he knows, but also bad that he knows. Mark says Ryan can't leave, he's Mark's muse, and again: It's good that he knows, but also bad. "I want to make art that stands up to the test of time, like Ryan's egregious Artist Persona surely will."
Junebug Erik drinks Vitamin Water and smokes his fifth morning cigarette out the window and, as usual, makes this whole thing seem like a halfway house for meth addicts and not an exploration of the world of art that Sarah Jessica wants it to be. "I think some area of the art world will accept me," he says. I just think it's frankly cruel that, after three rounds of this, nobody has told him about Outsider Art yet.
"You know how your goal is to live all alone in the desert with a soldering iron and just your sculptures of baby heads and Nazi paraphernalia to keep you company? As you slowly spiral down into patrolling the overgrown property with a shotgun and administering your own home trepanations? That's your market, Junebug."
On the caravan to China Chow's secret location, Peripeteia is wearing a homemade Donnie Darko/American Flagg!-style silvery set of bunny ears. (Why are you wearing that stupid bunny-ear hat, Purplenurple? "Why are you wearing that stupid person-face... person?") I see merely being the sole heir of the Thain of the Shire is still just not interesting enough for old Pierrot, but at least she's still in there fighting. So many people tragically give up trying desperately to be interesting well before you want to kill them.
Secret Location: Phillips de Pury & Company in Chelsea, where a batshit crazy old Frenchman is standing around in black tie yelling at passersby about art while he waits for his next opportunity to kill James Bond. Simon de Pury has made batshit crazy into its own kind of art, hasn't he? Jaime Lynn tells us what auctions are, and pronounces the gallery's name all crazy. Inside, there is a shocking bunch of intense shocking giant photographs courtesy of shock-monger Andres Serrano, who is a cottage industry specializing in intensely shocking giant photographs of intensely shocking things.