The Exhibit: Finding the Next Great Artist

This is not the first series that has ever tried to "find the next great artist." Indeed, if you take the word "artists" in its broadest meaning, fashion competition shows could be included in this category, and it's that subgenre that this program most resembles. The focus is more on personality than art itself, and when art is highlighted, it's usually in the context of "message" and "concept," with beauty and craftsmanship relegated to the back of the room. Not that I think art has to be saccharine or oh-so-pretty. It can have an edge, certainly. It can challenge or unsettle rather than comfort, to be sure. But it should possess primal power and be well-excecuted. Most of the pieces produced here fail to provide either. The artists are, for the most part, third-rate or below; I thought only two of them -- and maybe a third -- produced work that was worth anyone's time. Three other participants were, if anything, caricatures. The judging is absurd, for the most part, and the lead host is the epitome of shallow pretention.