'Work of Art II' ... may yet convince a straight man to watch Bravo TV

[Beefcake]

Work of Art II starts Wednesday night

Season I was very watchable entertainment. Interesting challenges, and some great personalities ... most of whom made it to the final 4. Where else can you see a friggin' weekly throw-down between a painter, photographer, sculptress, computer imager, video-nut, street performance artist, and installations guy?

Hoping Season II can live up to that.

Cast for Season II includes a guy named The Sucklord (whose art concept I love) and an eerily large people who look exactly like people we've seen on Project Runway. There's an Emilio Sosa, a Kenley, and an Olivier - who actually probably does have an accent living in Europe and in the US Midwest. Oh, but what's Lisa Loeb doing there?

I'm really looking forward to seeing what the graffiti artist (Tewz) can do! Er, or is that PR's Casanova?

Ugo? No, far from it. Bravo knows that ya gotta have a hunk or three on every reality show, or the gays won't tune in. (Lifetime hasn't learned this yet.)

[Allen]

Last night on Watch What Happens Live, they counted the numbers of time "Sucklord" was uttered in the premier, which was around 20, I think. "Sucklord" was also the word used for their drinking game last night

[reckless]

"Jazz-Minh" -- She can go home just for the Toddlers & Tiaras spelling of her name.

[BigB08822]

Sucklord says he doesn't know if he can improve upon the piece he chose because it was "perfect" to begin with. Then at the end he says his is just as "kitschy and terrible as the original." Hmmm?

I vomited in my mouth a little when one of the straight guys mentioned not knowing how it would go living with a gay man. Was he afraid of being jumped or afraid of suddenly turning gay? Both?

[Matryeshka]

Just watched the first episode, and oh my mullet, wheeeeeee!!!! There are plenty of tortured artistes.

Bye bye eye candy. They should have kept him till the ep before the final so we could look at him. Of course, then we'd have to look at his bad art. His really, really, really bad art.

Really enjoyed the first episode--I totally called the winner

Can't wait for future episodes.

[BigB08822]

I can not wait to watch that girl cry hysterically (as in it was really freaking funny!).

[Beefcake]

I really enjoyed the first episode, as well. This is a quality show that gets kind've lost in the shuffle. SJP really needs to promote this more, methinks.

LOVE Simon in his Tim Gunn role. Like Tim, he is really rooting for all of the artists, and also like Tim he gives advice and support without "answers" and sends them on their way to either find what works or trip on their own ego/misguided vision/etc.

Kind've early to love or hate certain cast members, but I "do" like the gal who won the challenge. I'd root for her anyway for surviving her apparently horrific hit-and-run, but I also liked her 1st challenge art and her matter-of-fact candids, e.g. "I haven't been this nervous since my last STD test."

Also like Young, who looks like Project Runway's Olivier but seems 80% more normal, and Lola, who seems like a wild child who will add a lot of light and lively personality to the goings-on. And it's cool to see the deaf guy, who I think is going to be good with one-liners, even through his interpretor.

OTOH, Dayette who seems like the type who is going to do "racial commentary" each challenge he's still on the show ... hopefully that means just one more challenge. I read that he is the cousin of Abdi, WoA S1 winner, who also put race into a lot of his work. But, Adbi did it with subtleness (for the most part). Mr. "everything is racial" attempted to portray the evils of white folks by adding a money trail, some jail bars and a black girl in around his "southern bell", but it ended up looking like a clumsy paste project that was only the sum of its parts.

Also, not loving the girl who wants to show entrails in all of her art. Previews say that she's a very ugly crier, too.

Spoiler

(From the preview on Bravo's site, she's crying over how much she loves her art.)

[tlk]

I thought they made the right decision this week. Two weeks of watching Gut-girl were two weeks too many for me. I loved Simon's reactions to the teams' initial ideas, thought he was spot on.

[Beefcake]

Art is hit or miss. Last night's episode ... miss. Big one. Neither team succeeded in representing "motion," even after Simon expressed his incredulousness.

The one gal's swing piece was interesting, right down to the detailed vagina, but the only piece I really liked was Leon's, and he didn't have a chance to win due to being on the "bottom" team. Le sigh. Leon -- I really like the guy ... he's got an ornery, fiery side to him. To wit, I believe that last night was the first time I've seen a "[bleep]" in sign language. (I put closed captioning on for reality shows to catch the conversations better.)

Yes, totally agree ... thank jeebus gut girl is gone. What a mess she is ... got to be hell to be her! Kathryn

Tewz isn't long for this show. Too bad; I really had high hopes for him upon reading the bios.

[susan6]

I thought they made the right decision this week. Two weeks of watching Gut-girl were two weeks too many for me.

Yeah, she was just trying way too hard to be edgy and controversial and alternative. I mean, tattoos, hipster glasses, and chanting. "Art" made of blood and guts. Just because nobody understands you doesn't make you an artist.

[skatesindreams]

There wasn't anything "artistic" about anything she did.
Note to contestants: "Blood and Guts" are not art.

Just because nobody understands you doesn't make you an artist.

Perhaps, there's a good reason why she "wasn't understood"!

[Lainerb]

I've seen more intent, thought and focus from my 3-5 year old class room in the mediums of scultpure, print, painting and video than the majority of these artists were able to deliever. They should cancel the show and start over IMO with a new cast of artists.

They should have cut Dayette for his video and the guy who wrapped a hose around the bucket.

[Matryeshka]

The one gal's swing piece was interesting, right down to the detailed vagina, but the only piece I really liked was Leon's, and he didn't have a chance to win due to being on the "bottom" team.

ITA. Leon's idea was interesting and interpreted the theme of motion.

Work of Art is still a work in progress; it's only the second season. Since it also has the problem of being waaay more subjective than cooking, hair-cutting or even fashion design, I think it's going to take a while to figure out what challenges/instructions make for good episodes and which ones don't. I think anything that's a broad term like "motion" isn't going to work with artists because I think by their very nature, most of them will be inclined to be as esoteric as possible. Since at first, every single artist misunderstood what was wanted, I'm going to blame that on producer error in its explanation.

Look at The Fashion Show--the first season was next to disastrous. The second season was vastly improved and way better than Project Runway's Wretchen season. Event Just Desserts--the first few challenges were kind of sucky this season, but it's really picked picked up in both talent and types of challenges. MUCH better than its first outing (though anything would be better than Morganza).

In short , I'm still for this show. I like this cast for the most part, I like the variety of viewpoints.

[Beefcake]

Sooooo, I guess that breasts can now be shown on American television! Lingered on lovingly in fact, for six/seven seconds at a time.

that said breasts were this episode's star, but only for the "art" portion ... our old friend Mister Blur was there to cover her up on the "live person" shots.

Entertaining episode, with some successful pieces IMO. Young adds a worthy challenge win to his "season's narrator" duties (which he is nailing). Of the judges' top 2, I'm glad that they went with him. His Entertainment Weekly spread looked awesome!

I love watching the artists develop their art from conception through the gallery show. Didn't titties woman and another just pop out of the woodwork for this episode? I swear I didn't see them in the first two.

Aw, poor Leon. I'll miss him. I'm surprised that they kept the dull guy, who built -- literally -- a beige trashcan with a vague message on it, over the unique Chinese deaf guy whose prior two pieces were awesome.

[emason]

Aw, poor Leon. I'll miss him. I'm surprised that they kept the dull guy, who built -- literally -- a beige trashcan with a vague message on it, over the unique Chinese deaf guy whose prior two pieces were awesome.

Surprised? Shocked was more like it.

[skatesindreams]

I think Leon has real talent.
Sorry to see him go.