Work Of Art Finale Review

WORK OF ART #1.10 "The Big Show"

After a very long 10 weeks, Work of Art is finally over. I, and I'm sure the majority of the Internet/America/Universe, was expecting Miles to win all along and so when I sat down I wasn't expecting anything surprising. I assumed the finale would be your typical show where the guy you knew was going to win wins and you're either really happy or breaking your neighbor's car windows. What? Am I the only one who reacts like that?

So here is a recap of what happened last night in my living room during the last 5 minutes of the last episode of season 1 of Work of Art: The Next Great Artist:

China: Miles, sorry, but even though your art is better than everyone single other person's on this show, and even though I shouldn't have the authority to say this to anyone - I mean, c'mon, look at me, I can't even properly dress myself! - YOU DIDN'T WIN. HAHA. NOW GTFO.
Miles: .__.
Me and My Sister: NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO MILES GODDARNIT WHY NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO EVERYTHING WE KNOW IS WRONG


Miles, I personally believe, was technically the most skilled. He was also the most fun to watch, the most polarizing, the one who EVERYONE had an opinion about, positive or negative. When we reminisce about this show in a few years or whatever, we will all talk about Miles. So for him not to win was a complete shock. Especially since they sent him out first!

Thankfully, our most knowledgeable or at least most critical judge Jerry Saltz has an explanation for us:

“When did Miles lose?” ...His show was all-but perfectly realized, and looked like something I might review in a respectable Lower East Side gallery. Here came the rub. Miles’ work was so up-to-date that it looked dated. This way his art lost its edge, turned in on itself; it went from being over-hung to just being overkill. As highly accomplished as his work was, it was a bit too much in a highly conceptualized, self-reflexive, intensely theorized, and familiar quasi-visual idiom. Miles had lost by winning. He got so close to a good idea of art, that the art he got close to wasn’t entirely his own. I began to understand that this had been happening all along. Indeed, it had been there in his first digital black-and-white portrait of Nao. I think Miles should move to New York and be poor and stay up late with thousands of other young artists. Then, in five years, he could be an artist to reckon with. That he lost this reality TV show will one day actually help him.

Let us hope that is true. Miles might have been a bit pretentious, a bit of a hipster, but he was overall a very good artist (if not great), and that's the most important thing. His art is very conceptual and not very emotional; that portrait of Nao, the one he did of the "homeless shelter," those were the only ones I can remember making anyone really feel anything. But he's good, darnit. I think he'll be okay.

Before we move on to who won, let me just talk about the home visits. They helped to make this episode a lot more memorable, very human, sweet; this episode could very well be my favorite. We got to see Peregrine, Abdi, and Miles in their home environments; we got to see where "the magic happens," who they are when they're in a more comfortable, less stressful and manufactured space. While I have personally been hating on Peregrine ever since that first team challenge, it was hard not to like her as she introduced our Favorite Eternally Gleeful Swiss Man Simon de Pury to her husband (a "Jazz musician and horn sculptor"). When he was playing that horn that was wrapped around her, it was not only awkward but also...okay, mostly it was awkward. But at least I didn't hate her anymore?

Peregrine's favorite part of her show was a big portrait of these two taxidermied unborn twin deer. They were precious. However, they seemed like an out-of-place "sideshow" when it came to the rest of her Carnival theme. She had cotton candy, tons of pink and orange casts of little boys' heads, ponies, etc. It was a bit too much, in my opinion. It really was all over the place. While there were some really good pieces in it (the deer and the guest judge David LaChapelle really liked her cast of a boy's head under glass), I agree with Bill: it would be better had it been edited down. It was too unruly.

Miles' house was very nice. I liked it. You know what's good about the Midwest, other than their funny accents? You can get nice homes on the cheap-ish. Miles' had a nice home that I assume was on the cheap-ish. (I feel like now is an appropriate time for me to, as always, plug the AV Club's review, which has tons of funny quips about Miles' and Abdi's home visits.) We got to see the place in which Miles' works, AKA the ga-raage. They kept pronouncing it weirdly. I liked Miles' concept a lot, but when I first saw it I was a bit skeptical about how it was turning out. His abstractions were INCREDIBLY abstract that, when I saw them in the garage, it was hard to see them the way he wanted me to.

However, his story of trying to make sense of the footage that he took of a homeless man who died a few days after the photos were taken was definitely interesting and better represented by his gallery show. The actual surveillance photos were included, which was a nice touch of realism amongst tons of Photoshopped images that had no recognizable human features in them. You could see Miles was really proud of what he did, and he should be. Even though I understand why he lost...I still can't BELIEVE it. While everyone on the Internet seems to think that Peregrine's show was the best, I really disagree. Miles' was the most coherent, even if it was the least visually compelling.

Oh, and Miles' parents had a nice house too. [/random]

Finally, we went to Abdi's house, where Abdi introduced Simon to his very nice mom that we all heard a lot about on the show. While Simon and Mrs. Abdi's Mom talked, Abdi made lots of his classic facial expressions. Someone needs to make me some .gifs of Abdi's face, because that boy has one BIG mouth that needs to be documented for all eternity. After Simon and Abdi's Mama were done blathering, Abdi brought Simon into his "cruddy" basement. I tell you, these editors became a lot better at making drama as time went on. The way this part was edited made it seem like Abdi was doing this completely horrible job - his ideas were good but his execution was awful and it was unlikely that these pieces would get better. Simon looked bewildered, confused, and I was sort of confused, too. I didn't think Abdi's pieces looked bad, but they tend not to look as good as they do in person on camera.

It was nice to see how friendly these guys were with each other. Usually in these kinds of shows, one of the final three is a "villain," or at least not liked by the other two. So it's good that Abdi, Miles, and Pere were such good friends. It was one of the things that contributed to making this episode so nice and calm. Really, it was not as climactic and intense as you'd think, except for the parts where Abdi rushes to put together his unfinished sculptures of the basketball players (that's what they were, right?). The two sculptures, when done, were laid on the floor and resembled "The Creation of Adam." That was a nice surprise, to see them turn out looking so well.

So Miles didn't win. I've established this. SO WHO DID? Those final minutes continue:

Jerry: Peregrine, gurl, you rocked it. You was fierce.
Me and My Sister: NO NOT PEREGRINE NO NO
Bill: Abdi, you da man.
Me and My Sister: ... :)
China: ABDI YOU WON YAY
Me and My Sister: NOT EXPECTING THAT BUT YESYESYESYESYESYES! ABDI WHOOOOOOOOOOOOO

Abdi is probably the single nicest person on television today. He was one of my favorites from the beginning, he and Miles. I thought for the longest time that his place in the Final Three would be inevitable, but as he started to falter I started to worry. So the fact that he came to win the whole thing was grand. A lot of people seem confused, but I see it this way: Abdi GREW the most. When he was good, he was REALLY good. When he was bad, he learned from those mistakes to turn it around. He was very inconsistent, but we must remember that he is also the youngest. I highly doubt there are real, successful artists out there who hit a home run every single time. Abdi was the most REAL out of the final three for this reason. He didn't play the game, creating a character (Miles) and he wasn't fake and irritating and obsessed with his quirkiness (Peregrine). In a medium that encourages you to be someone you're not, Abdi was wholly himself. And c'mon, he's just SUCH A NICE GUY. He deserved to win on that alone.

Even my mom, who had never seen an episode of the show before, was happy that Abdi won. Goes to show.

So congratulations Abdi, and I'll make sure to go see your show at the Brooklyn Museum whenever it is.

Yay, Abdi! :D

Read my reviews for Episode 4 and Episode 8.