Make It Pop!

Episode 3 of Work of Art: The Next Great Artist was a little closer to art I'm used to: Pop Art. Whoo hoo!

The contestants started out by following a line of label-less cans through De Pury's auction house until they discovered...Simon and host China Chow standing under Andy Warhol's Cambell's Soup Can!  Each artist was charged with making their own piece of pop art. To quote Simon: "Pop is bold; pop is brave; pop is sex; pop is life; pop is fun, pop is brash, pop is political...so Make it Pop!"

Young For The Win!

We finally get to see the artists rummaging through an actual art supply store and get a glimpse into their plans. Sucklord is going after Charlie Sheen. He plans to make bottles of Tigers Blood and a line of Wizard Dust products, packaging them like they're at a shop. Tewes is going to build the back end of a FedEx truck, changing the name to "FadEx" and tagging it with his own art.  Sara J. is going after online dating with a series of 'webcam' photos, Sarah K. is going after the foreclosure crisis with some see through "Sorry, We're Closed" signs. Young is making a big billboard regarding Prop 8 (Sara J rolls her eyes: That's sooo overdone in California...) and people are encouraged to grafitti the back of it.

We do find out some interesting things about our contestants: Lola and Suck seem to be attracted to each other, although Sucklord fears that when his actual girlfriend sees this episode, she'll "cut his balls off."  Kymia suffers from social anxiety disorder, after she discovered her father dead from a jet ski accident.  Jazz Minh has "Bite Me" tattooed on the inside of her bottom lip (OUCH!). And Michelle's confidence is shaken after her early success, and she's showing it through her Coke can painting...uh oh...too derivative...

Leon's piece is cold. Ads don't make pop art.

We end up with Young, and Kymia (nude water bottle ad) in the top two, and Young takes it home! The judges loved the interactiveness of the piece, and its presence and spark of conversation.

Jazz Minh tries to defend her splatter.

In the bottom, we have Leon (glass collection of ads), Dusty (trash bin that says "How could you?" on the flap), Jazz Minh (two portraits of herself, one that Suck spilled paint on--but she likes it) and Michelle.  But remember! Tonight is a double elimination! Michelle is instantly declared safe, she can leave. Her work was too pop, to Andy, not enough Michelle, but she'll live and learn. Dusty is declared safe, but told that he should have painted his bin a bright color (Side note: I told the BF when I first saw it that he should have painted it red. He rolled his eyes at me and asked why he should do that? Beige is the color of trash bins.  I said that red would make it more...poppy.--no pun intended--and I was right!)


That means that Leon and Jazz Minh (the BF's favorite) are out.  Jazz Minh's piece didn't SAY anything, and Leon needed to make his more personal, or as the judges put it: It was not a bad story to tell, just bad storytelling.

Next week: We get to see the artists interact with small children...which also means that Sucklord: Toy Artist will be interacting with small children...