Work of Art Recap: Pubes Sell!

Yo yo yo, ‘Gasmii!  Got change for a dollar?  Got any change?  Oh, sorry, that was me trying out my street sales method. Did it work?

No?  Well, then we better go talk about Work of Art.

(I was a few minutes into this recap when my brand new laptop shit the bed. No, I hadn’t hit save yet, so it was all gone. I was so dejected, I lost my mojo for the rest of the night. Hence the delay. I’m really sorry.)

Anyway. Dusty and Young were safe last week, so they’re hanging out at The Dillon, waiting for everyone else to come back. Dusty speculates that Sarah K. (Generic Sarah, Loud, Momjeans) won with her “Hide” car seat leather piece.  Nope!  She walks in all mopey, cuz it’s Sara J. who won!  Hooray! I love her humility. She just kinda smiles and hugs people when they congratulate her.  She gets that “oh shit” wrinkle in her brow before the smile, too. It seems so genuine. Also, she’s excited to go to graduate school with the money. Aww.

Don’t forget that Michelle, she of the paper sculptures and poop and tiger schlongs, went home for her sad car face piece. Ugh. I really thought she’d make it to the end, too. I think SHE lost her mojo, too. Bummer.

Lola’s bummed that Michelle left–another one of her friends is gone. She tromps over to the chalkboard to cross Michelle’s name off the list. Her demeanor is almost masculine in a way. Like, she does the suspender thing, the sleeveless leather jacket thing (that’s called a vest, SexyPanda), and her “I don’t give a shit” ‘tude is a bit masculine too. Patti Stanger would tell her to put away the penis.

Oh, but there’s that stupid John Hughes movie hat.

As per the usual show format, we show up the next morning at the artists’ apartments. Young is fussing with his hair with one of those flat iron/hair dryer combos. I roll my eyes in disgust, and my boyfriend laughs at my hatred for Young. He’s just so smug and calculating. It bugs!!

I notice that the last of the women–minus Lola–all seem to be good friends with each other. Sarah K, Sara J, and Kymia would have each others’ backs, I know it. Lola, not so much. But it’s okay, cuz she doesn’t care!

The six artists leave the apartments and head towards TriBeCa park to find out about today’s challenge. As they’re walking down the street, I laugh about how short everyone is, except Dusty. They’re, like, exceptionally short. (I say this as an exceptionally tall woman.)  Lola’s confused about the location, since TriBeCa “doesn’t have a lot of galleries.”  This brings to mind that commenter from last week who called Lola out for being an art leech.

They arrive at the park, where China and Simon await.  There are also three sets of tables, cash boxes, and wire framed walls.  What IS this?  Kymia’s groaning inside. She looks especially nervous today.

“We really, really, really want you to sell out. Ladies, this means nudity. Not you, Young.”

Simon and China explain the challenge, that there’s a definite disconnect for many artists between making art and making money.  So, as China explains, it’s time to “sell out.”  They’ll have a pretty short time frame to make art that sells well on the street AND looks great in the gallery. Sara J looks excited. Kymia looks like she might barf. Dusty looks mopey, as usual.

It’s another group challenge, ugh. Since Sara J won last week, she gets to pick who she wants to work with. It’s Young. He gets another chance to massage her vagina, yay!  Then it’s a (mild) free for all as the other four settle into teams of two. Kymia grabs Dusty before he even hears the end of the sentence, to avoid being stuck with Lola. Sarah K and Lola hug it out.  Lola looks mopey, too, actually. And watching it a few times here, while recapping, I notice that maybe she looked back at Kymia as if she wanted to work with her!  It was probably game play strategy, since she knows Sarah K is a weak link. Kymia may annoy her, but Lola knows she’s a great artist. Interesting. I wonder how differently things would have gone if they HAD worked together.  Hmm.

Lola looks so happy.

Here are the rules and parameters of this week’s challenge.  They’ll have five hours total to shop for the challenge and create the art they’ll sell on the street.  Then they’ll have two hours to actually sell their stuff.  And it needs to be a piece of physical art, no performance art. Cut to Young, who nods in understanding. Good! I hate performance art.  The team that sells the most ($$) will win, and they’ll not only get $30K, they’ll get immunity for the next challenge!  Holy shit!

Sara J really seems to be comfortable with this challenge. She works quickly anyway, and she’s successfully sold work on the street before, stuff she’s done quickly the night before. She’s good. Young starts talking about making t-shirts.

Dusty and Kymia are chatting it out. Kymia’s idea is to create postcards to sell, printing “I supported an artist today” on it. It feels less like a sell-out to her this way.  Dusty’s also thinking about t-shirts, especially since he’s apparently got his own t-shirt business back home as it is. (Dirt Shirts–go hit your Google with that!)

Panic!

Sarah K and Lola are talking together on a bench. Lola’s really butched out today except for the John Hughes movie hat.  Sarah K has ideas, even though she’s already worried about the challenge because her gallery art and her idea of street art are so very different things. She starts rambling about making things out of paper, feathers, but spray-painted feathers?  Native American, gluing them on “cool, but not hippie”, etc.  Lola’s confused, and so am I.  Lola’s idea is to take a nekkid photo and write personal things on it. (The judges told her to get more personal in her work.)

Lola’s pretty much like, “hey, the challenge is about selling art, about selling out, and sex sells.”  She’s no dummy. Just an annoying bitch. Oh, and don’t forget that she’s not only going to sell these nudie photos, she’s going to not print prices anywhere so she can try to manipulate the most money out of people. Wow.

Oh, and they want to do t-shirts, too!!

Everyone apparently heads over to American Apparel to get their shirts. I guess they’re a sponsor? I know they have nice t-shirts, but aren’t there probably a zillion places in NYC to buy plain t’s?  Yeah. I think they have $600 to spend on all the stuff they need/want for the challenge, so part of it is planning out what they need for shirts and what they need for paint/etc at the art store.

I roll my eyes in disgust again when Young calls out to Sara J that he’s in the underwear section of American Apparel. Of COURSE you are, Young. Jesus Christ. Kymia and Dusty buy super plain t’s. Sara J and Young seemed to have gone for random entries in the sale/clearance rack, which is kinda smart. I like that idea.

One more time for being grossed out about Young. He and Sara J are buying new little matching running shorts so they can prance their booties around during the challenge to sell more stuff.  Young comments on how his boyfriend loves his butt. He describes his own ass as “round and pert.” SHUT UP.

In the van, Kymia is worrying at Dusty about the time. They have four places to stop before heading back to the studio, and they only have 3+ hours left. Sara J and Young figure it’s best to haul ass back to the studio rather than running more errands, and when they get back to the studio, they ransack the supply wall. Apparently mulitple colors of streamers exist on the supply wall, which Sara J and Young take. They take a bunch of spray paint and such, too.

Right away, Sara J gets to work on making some smaller paintings to sell. She also draws what looks like a ‘possum on a t-shirt.  Young starts making weird PacMan ghost paintings or something. I don’t really get it, and I’m not sure why he thinks they’ll sell. Then he starts spray painging smiley faces on underwear. Like, using the lines of the schlong hole to make a mouth and eyes. Whatever.

Lola and Sarah K get back to the studio, where they discover how much stuff Sara J and Young have taken. But all is fair in love and war, so Lola’s not too pissed yet. Kymia and Dusty, meanwhile, are still scooting around NYC in their van. Why are they not back at the studio yet? Especially with what we know they make, they should have been the first ones back. So weird.

Everyone’s pretty much frantic. It really is not a lot of time to get stuff done. Young and Sara J work well together, and they have similar work ethics, which helps the whole team challenge thing. Their strategy, which is pretty simple, is to make a lot of stuff they can sell quickly, since winning the sales part is the part that gets them $30,000 and immunity. I don’t mean to be Captain Obvious about it, it’s just that I think some people are missing the fact that even though they’re “artists,” they are still a part of a competitive reality TV show and need to do things to stay on the show if they want to win.

Dusty and Kymia finally arrive, and they struggle in the door with bags that are ripping and crappy. This isn’t going well for them so far. Dusty’s got a plan, though. Since he’s a Southerner, not a huge NYC dweller, he’s been especially observant of the fact that HE is being observed all the time, by way of constant video surveillance. So his t-shirt is a graphic of a surveillance camera surrounded by the outline of the US. Thing is, he already used the US in a challenge before, AND his security camera kinda looks like a bull-riding hump to me. Others say it looks like a toner cartridge.

For the gallery piece, Dusty’s going to make a road sign with the US outline and surveillance camera on it. That’s fine.

Kymia’s up on the roof, spray painting postcards with block letters that spell “SUPPORT ARTISTS.”  She’s stressing out because those postcards probably aren’t going to be very interesting on the gallery wall.

I just really don’t understand Sarah K’s piece at all. It’s just feathers and headdresses and then stenciled boobs on a t-shirt?  I just don’t really get it. The feathers are well-done, but it’s still just paper feathers.

Lola’s working on the text part of her photo, which reads, and I quote, “I might be a terrible person. I am moody and sometimes mean. I occasionally lie and steal.. I do enjoy a drink at the end of the day. I cry at the drop of a hat.  I am loyal but not all the time. I have a little moustache [sic] and a few chin hairs which I have to remember to pluck.”  That’s it so far, I’ll see if I can get the rest from the finished piece. You know, the part near where her legs are suddenly, inexplicably gray.

Time for nudie pics!  Sarah K takes a basic nude shot of Lola, standing exposed in front of a white sheet of paper. Lola tells us how Jerry critiqued her for not sharing enough of herself in her work, so … this one’s for you, Jer!

Kymia’s making snippy faces about Lola’s nude photo. Oh well! YOU did one!  (I know, I know, completely different. But not really. But really, different. But…)

Speaking of Kymia, she’s realizing that the “SUPPORT ARTISTS” postcards aren’t going to be very interesting in the gallery. But you know what will be interesting? A bunch of plain postcards with people’s signatures on them!!  Kymia’s going to sell HER signature, and then she’ll collect others’ signatures, and then that’ll be her piece.  At first I’m like, “What? No one wants your signature!” But then I think some more and come to the conclusion that enough people probably like the idea of their signature being involved in a piece of art in a gallery. It’s not a lot to ask of someone, and yet a signature is everything.

I’m not sure why she even asked the group about this, since it doesn’t seem even remotely close to the idea of being a performance piece, but…she asks the group. Is the group okay with Kymia selling signatures and collecting signatures?  Lola, to be a pain in the ass, is like, “I’m kinda not okay with it.”  Kymia rolls her eyes and huffs and is probably biting back tears. It looks like it’s going to be big drama, but it ends of blowing over. Basically, Lola’s like, “I don’t really care, especially since that means that I have more room to bend some rules, mwahahah.” There’s more chatter than that, but that’s really all it ends up being. If Kymia gets special treatment, Lola better get it too.  There, done.

Time in the studio is up rather quickly, and now it’s time to sell things at the park. Sara J and Young are in their matching short shorts.  They’re putting up streamers around all their junk.  Sarah K has made spray-paint signs for her space with Lola.

It looks like Young sat in something, not art.

Speaking of Lola, I think I have the rest of her text.  Ready?  “I rarely wax the other area and have to hope that someday pubic hair comes back into fashion. I am a gossip and quite judgemental. I hate my mother’s hair but I tell her I like it although probably not very convincingly. I want to tell you you’re not doing it right, but even then even if you did it, it would only be because I told you to and all spontaneity would be gone.”  Oh yeah, I forgot to mention how Lola’s rocking the full bush. It’s not creeping up to her belly button like I’ve seen in my parents’ old Joy of Sex book, but it’s full for today’s standards.

Why is it gray from the thighs down? The words are still in color. It’s mid-sentence, too, so it’s not like the tone of the words changes or anything. I really want to know!

So, Lola’s selling this photo in different sizes, for different prices, and then if you pay more, she can take a blank nude photo and write in her own deep secret on the spot. Which isn’t really performance art, so that’s fine. Performance art, to me, is Young’s stupid kitsch art challenge, not writing secrets or selling a signature. But that whole thing with Kymia asking permission threw me off, so I’m waiting for that to actually be an issue later.

Lola, as we said before, hasn’t put firm prices on anything. She’s trying to gauge based on what she sees in people. One 40′s ish guy in a sport coat asks about her photo, and she tells him it’s $100. He offers her $5. HA!  But then he turns around and agrees to pay $100 for it.

This guy is apparently known to the artists as “the big spender.”  Young starts talking about him, and it makes him realize he has to step up his game. He brags about having sold over $200,000 of art in the past two years. Good for you, shut up. Kymia’s annoyed that Young sold out and is wearing little shorts and selling underwear. Also, is he going to put a pair of panties on the wall in the gallery?

Kymia’s piece sounds so nerdy, “I’m selling my signature in exchange for yours.”  Ugh!  And I just can’t see how it’s going to be a good piece!  Dusty’s running into trouble with people not knowing what the camera actually is.

Sarah K’s stupid feather stuff is stupid. She’s standing there wearing a feather headdress, the same one we all made in kindergarden at Thanksgiving before things got politically correct.  She looks ridiculous. And now she’s spray-painting two cupped lines on a shirt and calling them boobs?  This is stupid.

Naughty bits are terrible

Word of Lola’s nudity is spreading through the land. Some guys who are maybe very nice but probably pretty lonely come out to buy some nudity. I’m sure there are teenage boys hiding in the bushes, too. Boobs!

I just noticed that the scale of Lola’s picture changes, in terms of words to body ratio. On smaller photos, the words take up the whole photo. On larger photos, the words end near her pubes. Did she plan this?  Did she have an answer for this?  Did anyone else notice?  I can’t decide if the meaning (for me) changes if those words change size/placement. I’ll have to think some more about it and get back to you.

The “big spender” is now at Young and Sara J’s table. He’s taking one of Young’s and one of Sara J’s paintings, which, if I hear correctly, are priced around $50. Sara J is just smiling while Young hustles. But then she realizes she’s pretty much out of things to sell. What to do?  Make street portraits!

Uh oh, here comes my nagging worry that this whole “performance art rule” is out to get them. I worry for Sara!  But not really.

Anyway, she sits a few people down and starts doing some basic ink drawings with subtle, minor watercolor paint to fill in. They’re definitely Sara J style, but they’re actually not bad portraits either.  She’s got a long line backing up, waiting for portraits. She can’t even go potty!

What, they’re only $10?  $10 is what you pay at Six Flags for some asshole to do a caricature of you, not what you pay someone like Sara J to paint!  She should have charged more. $20?  I guess it was a matter of volume. How long did each portrait take?  So many questions!

Ah, it’s Simon time!  He’s not terribly impressed with Dusty’s. Dusty doesn’t seem at all interested in changing what he’s doing.  Simon’s intrigued by Kymia’s idea but isn’t sure it’s a convincing project. I guess we’ll see!

“Yours sounds boring.”

“As does yours!”

Then Simon checks in on Young and Sara J. Young’s all smarmy and annoying at the table, where there seems to be a dearth of customers. Simon’s tempted to buy one of Sara J’s paintings on the spot. He’s a little disdainful about the underwears.

Then he checks with Sara J, who’s mid-portrait on a painting of a young man who looks like a chubby Hispanic Michael Cera. She’s done street portraits before, is having fun, and has a lot of people waiting for her attention. Simon moves on.

Now to check in with Lola. I have to LOL every time I watch it, because Simon is hysterical in the presence of Lola’s pubes. I don’t mean he’s running around screaming, I mean he’s really fucking funny. He’s like, “I have to tell you, I’m having trouble focusing on the text, I’m a little distracted by the background.”  Hahaha. He wonders if the judges will find it too obvious, but he also knows Lola pulls good shit out of her ass at the last second, so who knows. She asks if she should make it big for the gallery, and he concurs–make it big!

And this marks the first time Simon has liked Lola’s piece from the start!

This is still making me laugh.

Now to see what the fuck Sarah K is doing.  What IS she doing??  I still don’t get it, and apparently Simon doesn’t either. Or he does and he just doesn’t like what she’s doing. I think it’s the latter.  Oh well. It seems pretty obvious that Sarah K’s going to be on the bottom this week. Since she knows her gallery piece isn’t going to be great, she’s going to do her best to make a shit-ton of money and win outright.  Like, starts stealing customers from other booths, offers her t-shirts for $5.

Another LOL comes when Lola sells a secret to a 3-yr-old girl for a quarter, and the girl leaves the park crying. I’m sure she’s crying because she was made to leave, but the editing here to make it appear otherwise is awesome.

And now the artists have an hour to prepare their gallery piece. It’s gotta be pretty much the same thing they were selling on the streets.  So, it’s Dusty’s sign and Kymia’s postcards; Lola’s nudie pic and something with Sarah K’s headdresses and boobs; and Young’s panties with Sara J’s portraits.

Young ends up painting his underwear faces on paper, rather than deciding to hang actual underwear in the gallery. There’s another Pac-Man ghost painting coming into it, too, which I really don’t get.

Sara J repaints the big-ass woman she painted earlier and sold. I looked through her stuff on Facebook earlier this week, and boy, that woman likes to paint big woman asses and crotches, with big hairy muffs skewed in every direction. Like, she would paint a picture of a woman pushing a shopping cart at Target and her muff would be flying out of her enormous ass while she shopped. Ya know? It’s her signature, I guess!

Sarah K is making more feather shit, and I don’t get it. She’s definitely going home, right? Well, wait. Dusty’s calling home and really misses his wife and kid.  He’s crying. So since we’re seeing more from him tonight, HE is probably going home?  I’m trying to second-guess these editors now.

Kymia’s laying out her signatures for the final gallery piece.  She thinks it’s beautiful, all the different signatures she got back.  But it still sounds boring to me!

The “We’re Back!  No, We’re Not!” segment this week is all about tears. It’s basically a big montage of people crying or people talking about crying.  Fun!

Gallery show!  Judges this week are our old buddies Jerry, Bill, China, and Jeanne Greenberg Rohatyn. Lola’s scared because the last time Jeanne judged, Lola was on the bottom. And I just noticed that Sara J is wearing a white t-shirt with her big-muff-ass woman on it!  I like the proportions of her sloppy white t-shirt and enormous trousers.

At least they all look happy…

Jerry likes Kymia’s piece because of how personal it is–what’s more personal about you than your signature?  Well, lots of things, but I’d be taking a rhetorical question literally, and that’s no fun.

No one gets Dusty’s. Is it a mailbox? is it a burrito?  Uh oh.

Oh, the text on Lola’s also changes justification based on the size, apparently. Like, it’s all breaking sentences in crazy places. (As a technical editor, I notice this shit immediately.)  I don’t like that. I hope she gets dinged for the typography. Cuz it’s lazy. So is me typing “cuz” but I’m not trying to win hundreds of thousands of dollars and I’m not on TV. (I just write about it!) Oh, and there’s one last sentence that I missed: “Please stop being so gentle, it’s making me nauseous.”

Whatever.

Bill and Jeanne call Sarah K’s a “thanksgiving play-date.” Yep! It’s no good!

And that’s that!  Time for crit!  All of them get talked to.

Sara J and Young are first.  Young explains his Sharpie drawings and his underwear. Jerry stops him once he realizes Young didn’t display the actual underwear but a representation of them. Jeanne rips Young for thinking they’re short-sighted and can’t see underwear as art. Ugh, that sentence hurt. Jerry calls him out for not really doing the challenge as given. Told!!  Young made $129.

Sara J is up next. She speaks of the drawings and watercolors, of the street portraits. China loves them, wishes she’d gotten a portrait done herself. Jeanne and Jerry loved the portraits, too, just wished maybe there were more of them. Sara J made $320.  Team total is $449.

Now we’ll talk to Dusty and Kymia. Dusty first. He explains the concept, and then when the judges assume he didn’t sell many t-shirts, he explains that he sold about 20 or so. Did he sell any signs?  No. Does he know why not?  Nope. Jerry raises his hand like a goober to answer his own question. What an asshole. “I think I know why…because it’s awful.” Nice!  Dusty smiles and shakes it off.  Also, the camera image wasn’t quite salient, AND the judges didn’t like the US map retread.  So, Dusty’s not in favor. He made $185.  Better than Young did!

Kymia explains her piece next. The judges love how direct her piece is. What she sold is what she’s showing. Jeanne calls the idea of “peddling your own signature” as “absurd”, but then explains that that’s where the art comes in. Jerry almost insults her by telling her it was flat and boring, but then explains that he changed his mind. She really made a piece of art.  Why is he speaking so slowly?  Oh, she made $96.  Team total $281.   They’re up for elimination.

Finally, let’s talk to Sarah K and Lola. Sarah K first.  Her stupid feather headdresses and boobs. It’s just so stupid. The judges say it’s not really art. Ouch. And if she was trying to cultivate the idea that “sex sells,” she really fucking failed. “Yeah, I know.”  She knows.  She made $95.  Kymia made more than you, selling her fucking signature!!

Lola next.  Jerry speaks of the secrets first, complimenting her for not sounding like a shitty asshole in spilling the secrets. It was genuine. The judges acknowledge the nudity, as that’s what attracted the public, and then they speak of how Lola engaged them with the secrets. Dammit, Lola. You had a successful piece. Fuck, you’re not going home tonight.

Lola needs to have made more than $354 to be part of the winning team. Well, duh, wasn’t she selling some pieces for $100?  Surely she made more than that.

But no!  She only made $217.  Team total $312.  Sara J made more money BY HERSELF than your team made in total…and that means Sara J and Young just won $30,000 and immunity. Holy shit!

Lola’s rolling her eyes and making noises about how she had the best piece. Actually, no. I think Sara J had the most successful piece, bitch. So quit being a pain in the ass.

So, it’s between Dusty and Sarah K, right?  Right. Dusty’s was weird and uninspired, but it wasn’t bad. Sarah K’s was bad.  The judges didn’t like that she used construction paper and yet her piece wasn’t playful. Her work was too polished for being spray-painted stencils. As for Dusty, he actually had an interesting idea, but he didn’t go far enough with it. That’s a theme with him, really.

Time for the scripted put-downs, and time to tell us whose work of art didn’t work for us.  Sarah K?  Yep, Sarah K.  Goodbye and good night.

I can’t help but get teary-eyed when she starts outright crying back in the stew room as she hugs everyone goodbye. I get especially weepy when she says, softly (for once), “I really liked getting to know you guys so much.”  Sad face. Wipe tear. Group hug! Sarah K talks about her father as inspiration for her taking this risk, and that’s great. Keep going at home, Sarah K. Wish you well!

Next week!  The artists go out into the wild, otherwise known as a small town in the Hudson Valley somewhere. As China says, this is the challenge that will determine which three artists will go to the finale.  Ah, double-elimination week.  And since Sara J and Young are already immune, that means it’s really a race between Dusty, Kymia, and Lola. God, I hope it’s Kymia.  And then the finale is the 20th. Wow, it’s going to be over already?!   Come back, we’ll talk!!