The Next Great Artist

Required Wednesday night viewing is currently The Next Great Artist on Sky Arts? An 'Apprentice' style competition set in New York, it's the perfect combination of trash reality TV and art. It was even better before they eliminated all the contestants who, being artists, railed against the whole process. Yes, you wondered why they'd applied in the first place, but their stubborn refusal to do what the competition required of them, including ignoring tasks and refusing to explain their work to the judges, made for great viewing. I miss heavily tattoed and belligerent Erik most - kicked out a few weeks ago after a standoff with Miles, an angel faced, iron-hearted ball of ambition. Emotional Erik, whose bad attitude clearly masked a chasm of vulnerability, was never going to beat Manipulative Miles. I hope Erik hasn't buckled under the experience but no-one need worry for Miles in the future. He is a charismatic and talented artist who will obviously put his work ahead of anything else, so I think he could be someone to look out for. On screen he doesn't actually seem that awful but he (or perhaps his talent) is obviously starting to get the others backs up - one quietly remarked this week 'I never realised before but Miles is kind of like this big douchebag.'

But, away from the trashy side of the show, the tasks given to the competitors are interesting in what they reveal about the process of making art. Anyone studying fine art will recognise the M.O. of task and critique. It's also heavily biased towards the contemporary obsession with the conceptual. I've only seen one task so far (creating a book cover) hasn't been about making a conceptual piece. 

A piece by competitor Abdi Farash

Emotional Erik

Two tasks have been most interesting - creating a work that is 'shocking' and most recently, a piece about what happened in childhood to set the contestants on the path of being an artist. The rubbish some of them produced  is the clearest demonstration yet that successful conceptual art is not just someone throwing a load a dirty sheets over a bed. I was amazed at how, when given the go ahead to produce something 'shocking' almost every one of them reverted to sex. They didn't consider the meaning of the word 'shocking' at all, they didn't question whether what shocks them might also shock others, they just thought 'sex'. Perhaps it's their age - they are all quite young. The older you get the less shocking sex becomes.... 

This cuts to the core of my personal doubts about current fine art education. Conceptual art is, of course, about the concept - thought, philosophy, theory. How many 18 year olds, on their foundation course, have a grasp of concepts that aren't, frankly, trite and meaningless? Only a rare few have enough talent to make up for the lack of knowledge and life experience. My ideal art training would combine strong emphasis on the craft of fine art (those old fashioned things like drawing, how to mix paint, print making) with a broad range of philosophy, history, anthropology etc. Only after at least three years of that would any potential artist be allowed to run free with the conceptual. 

Having looked at N.G.A online, I've already found out who has won this series, I won't spoil the surprise but I think they made the right choice. It's an artist who consistently demonstrates the ability to mix skill with serious thought, emotion and authenticity. It's someone who produces work I would actually like to see for real.  It shows (spoiler alert) that being an iron-hearted, ambitious douchebag doesn't get you first prize.

If you fancy giving the competition a go yourself at home, here are a list of the challenges:

1. Create a "portrait" of a competitor

2. Create a work from trash found in an electronics graveyard

3. Create a book cover of a classic novel

4. Create a piece of shock art

5. Create art inspired by a visit to a luxury car showroom

6. Work in a team to create an outdoor sculpture

7. Create a work that symbolizes your early inspiration to be an artist using only children's art supplies

8. Work with a partner to create work that expresses opposing words -man/woman, order/chaos, heaven/hell

9. Create a work inspired by nature, including something from nature in the piece

10. Create a final collection