The show's final challenge was about nature—a classic theme, to be sure. The contestants were driven up to Connecticut, though I still think the Hudson River Valley would have been a gimme. Results were mixed, and the results of the show—two were sent home—are what I'll be discussing. (That's a hint.)
I've thought for a while now that the show was Peregrine's to lose, and tonight she nearly did. I'm calling out Miles for conceptual sabotage, though P shares blame for accepting such a cockamamie idea. P's initial instinct to do something faunlike and primal was a good one. That it devolved into "teenagers in the park" as opposed to adolescence as a form of natural alchemy and a site of metamorphosis was stupid. That it became, with a word from Miles, "teenagers in the park having sex", complete with Jaime Lynn-level paper dolls among the branches, made it a disaster. You could tell that P was amazed to go to the final; she literally looked like she just shit her pants. She's right too, she should have been sent home.
Jaclyn punted and lost for it. A cold, really? Colds can be draining, sure, but the prize for this show is a ridiculous SOLO SHOW AT THE BROOKLYN MUSEUM. That's actually a much bigger prize than "blah blah at Fashion Week" or the Aspen Food and Drink whatever nonsense they do on the sister shows. That said, I actually liked the piece—the two panels meeting in the corner was neat. I do agree though that the rock looked "cuffed" to the horizon pipe; some invisible thread would have worked better, but Jaclyn burned her bridge with Miles (everyone's best external resource) and lacked the internal resources to solve that technical problem. If it had been sunny and she was feeling healthy though, I imagine Jaclyn could have gotten to the final by rolling around naked in the mud, taking a photo of that, and then rolling around, still muddy, on a canvas.
Speaking of Miles, he too got to the final primarily based on the strength of his previous work, and being sufficiently "art school." And his piece was art school, specifically the ol' tampon-in-a-teacup trick, augmented with the philosophy of "If it can't be good, at least make it huge." I didn't think his fungus study or the bleach-stained paper were good at all. His attempt at randomization failed mainly because he didn't do enough iterations. Cut-ups and collage and juxtaposition and found phenomena work great if you edit—you're supposed to do something like he did fifty times and then pick the best one, not once and then just stick up there and hope that your bullshit is sufficiently baffling that you get an A.
I liked Abdi's, except for the title. "Baptism"? Jesus Christ indeed. Nothing's wrong with UNTITLED if you can't think of anything good. I'm reminded of the joke about those New Yorker cartoons where you're supposed to write your own caption—"Christ, What an Asshole" fits every single cartoon ever. That would have worked here too. I also could have done without the underwear in the painting, but it was a powerful piece overall. Abdi's a better artist than he is a conceptualizer of his own work; he needs to hire someone to write his artist statements and shut the hell up. Pace Jerry, I liked the frame. The wood hinted at both nature and finitude; without it the painting would have looked too cosmic to really capture nature-in-human and human-in-nature.
Nicole's was similar in the stupidly obvious name department—"Micmac." Of course, the judges had no idea about the Micmac (though there are a large number of them in NYC and CT, actually) so made perfect clowns of themselves wondering if the piece was supposed to be about "a dinosaur egg of some alien species." Maybe Nicole should have named the thing Montauk, but then I suppose the judges would have been wondering where the lighthouse and the Malaysian cabana boys were...
Anyway, it was also kind of dumb. The bad part of Nicole's piece were the solid white slabs—it would have been better hollow. It still would have looked like a diorama though.
Feh. Everyone stumbled. But next week, the final show! Smart money's on Miles. Abdi is too busy with five-finger exercises and P showed that she chokes. But I guess we knew it was going to be Miles all along, especially since Jaclyn won't be around to play spoiler anymore.
Jerry's report is up and is illuminating as always. Jaclyn also has a post up, but it's more guarded than usual. She also put up a little commercial for herself too, anticipating traffic, which is hilarious. Must everyone be a slave to external validation? I guess that's why they do on TV...
I've thought for a while now that the show was Peregrine's to lose, and tonight she nearly did. I'm calling out Miles for conceptual sabotage, though P shares blame for accepting such a cockamamie idea. P's initial instinct to do something faunlike and primal was a good one. That it devolved into "teenagers in the park" as opposed to adolescence as a form of natural alchemy and a site of metamorphosis was stupid. That it became, with a word from Miles, "teenagers in the park having sex", complete with Jaime Lynn-level paper dolls among the branches, made it a disaster. You could tell that P was amazed to go to the final; she literally looked like she just shit her pants. She's right too, she should have been sent home.
Jaclyn punted and lost for it. A cold, really? Colds can be draining, sure, but the prize for this show is a ridiculous SOLO SHOW AT THE BROOKLYN MUSEUM. That's actually a much bigger prize than "blah blah at Fashion Week" or the Aspen Food and Drink whatever nonsense they do on the sister shows. That said, I actually liked the piece—the two panels meeting in the corner was neat. I do agree though that the rock looked "cuffed" to the horizon pipe; some invisible thread would have worked better, but Jaclyn burned her bridge with Miles (everyone's best external resource) and lacked the internal resources to solve that technical problem. If it had been sunny and she was feeling healthy though, I imagine Jaclyn could have gotten to the final by rolling around naked in the mud, taking a photo of that, and then rolling around, still muddy, on a canvas.
Speaking of Miles, he too got to the final primarily based on the strength of his previous work, and being sufficiently "art school." And his piece was art school, specifically the ol' tampon-in-a-teacup trick, augmented with the philosophy of "If it can't be good, at least make it huge." I didn't think his fungus study or the bleach-stained paper were good at all. His attempt at randomization failed mainly because he didn't do enough iterations. Cut-ups and collage and juxtaposition and found phenomena work great if you edit—you're supposed to do something like he did fifty times and then pick the best one, not once and then just stick up there and hope that your bullshit is sufficiently baffling that you get an A.
I liked Abdi's, except for the title. "Baptism"? Jesus Christ indeed. Nothing's wrong with UNTITLED if you can't think of anything good. I'm reminded of the joke about those New Yorker cartoons where you're supposed to write your own caption—"Christ, What an Asshole" fits every single cartoon ever. That would have worked here too. I also could have done without the underwear in the painting, but it was a powerful piece overall. Abdi's a better artist than he is a conceptualizer of his own work; he needs to hire someone to write his artist statements and shut the hell up. Pace Jerry, I liked the frame. The wood hinted at both nature and finitude; without it the painting would have looked too cosmic to really capture nature-in-human and human-in-nature.
Nicole's was similar in the stupidly obvious name department—"Micmac." Of course, the judges had no idea about the Micmac (though there are a large number of them in NYC and CT, actually) so made perfect clowns of themselves wondering if the piece was supposed to be about "a dinosaur egg of some alien species." Maybe Nicole should have named the thing Montauk, but then I suppose the judges would have been wondering where the lighthouse and the Malaysian cabana boys were...
Anyway, it was also kind of dumb. The bad part of Nicole's piece were the solid white slabs—it would have been better hollow. It still would have looked like a diorama though.
Feh. Everyone stumbled. But next week, the final show! Smart money's on Miles. Abdi is too busy with five-finger exercises and P showed that she chokes. But I guess we knew it was going to be Miles all along, especially since Jaclyn won't be around to play spoiler anymore.
Jerry's report is up and is illuminating as always. Jaclyn also has a post up, but it's more guarded than usual. She also put up a little commercial for herself too, anticipating traffic, which is hilarious. Must everyone be a slave to external validation? I guess that's why they do on TV...