BAS Gossip Break: Is Andres Serrano First Guest on Bravo’s Upcoming “Untitled Artist Project”?

Andres Serrano, Shit (heroic Shit), 2007. Chromogenic print.

Things have been way too serious around this here blog lately, and it’s mostly my fault. Meg, we need you to curate us up a bunch of new cat videos, pronto!! But I do have this small scrap of completely un-newsworthy information to offer y’all. A bit of gossip came through the BAS grapevine which we are passing along to those of you who care about Bravo’s upcoming Untitled Artist Project, the Sarah Jessica Parker-produced t.v. reality series that pits artist against artist. We hear that artist Andres Serrano will be the guest judge on the show’s first episode, which is also one of several that will take place in the Phillips de Pury & Company headquarters in Chelsea. The set will feature a kind of “greatest hits” showcase of the used-to-be controversial, now just tired “Piss Christ” artist’s works, whose last exhibition at Yvon Lambert in New York was titled “SHIT” and featured photographs of shit.

If it is indeed true that Serrano winds up being the first featured artist on the series (I wouldn’t be surprised if the planned order of shows gets switched around in the editing process, so who really knows), it’s a sure signal that the Untitled Artist Project wants to start out with a bang by selecting guest artists whose work is perceived as being “extreme” in some way, and that more of the same will follow.

And you know, that’s perfectly fine with me. I can’t wait for this show. My only fear about it is that it’ll be on too late for me to watch it given how freaking tired I am at the day. What I’m most anticipating actually is the chatter that will take place on Bravo’s online forums as viewers start rooting for favorites and fervently justifying their reasons for doing so. Will the artist/contestants on Bravo’s show gain audience favor/hatred via their personalities or the art they make? I personally don’t care which it winds up being – I’m not looking for anything other than some great television from this show, although I certainly wouldn’t rule out the possibility that we might get lucky and get a lot more than that out of it.

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Claudine Isé

Claudine Isé has worked in the field of contemporary art as a writer and curator for the past decade, and currently serves as the Editor of the Art21 Blog. Claudine regularly writes for Artforum.com and Chicago magazine, and has also worked as an art critic for the Los Angeles Times. Before moving to Chicago in 2008, she worked at the Wexner Center in Columbus, OH as associate curator of exhibitions, and at the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles as assistant curator of contemporary art, where she curated a number of Hammer Projects. She has Ph.D. in Film, Literature and Culture from the University of Southern California.

BAS Gossip Break: Is Andres Serrano First Guest on Bravo’s Upcoming “Untitled Artist Project”?

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