At last November’s opening of Hiroshi Sugimoto’s controversial redesign of the Hirshhorn Museum’s sculpture garden in Washington, D.C.—designed with Brutalist vigor in 1974 by Gordon Bunshaft and given verdant new life in 1981 by landscape architect Lester Collins—the museum’s director Melissa Chiu joined First Lady Jill Biden and a go-go band to celebrate the institution’s new direction. “We see how the most important artists of our time are working today across every media,” Chiu said, “and exploring technology and innovation in every form, from sculpture and video to sound and performance.”
And, apparently, reality television. On March 3, seven American artists will sashay away from the traditional competition of building an art career and make it work for MTV on The Exhibit: Finding The Next Great Artist. The winner, who will be announced at the museum’s annual gala, will receive a $100,000 prize and a solo exhibition. For judging, Chiu will be joined by guests including artist Adam Pendleton, artist-critic-NFT booster Kenny Schachter, and assorted sociologists, strategists, and collectors.
The six episodes will air after RuPaul’s Drag Race, a show that proves talent can survive the medium’s inherent humiliations. There’s real artistic legitimacy in the group of contestants, too, including photographer Baseera Khan and sculptor Misha Kahn. So here’s hoping the group can find inspiration in the endurance of reality television as the judges ask them to, per the press release, “respond to a single piece from the Hirshhorn’s collection and comment on a pressing issue of our time.” That might not necessarily make great art, but if they don’t fuck it up, it might make great TV.
