Public art! The artists are brought to a public art space at Canal & 6th Avenue and told that they must create their own piece of public work, but there's a catch: they must work as a team.
The space itself sort of resembles a playground. There looks to be a loose gravel 'floor' and lots of open air. There's a chain link fence around the space, meaning there are no walls. Whoever designed the art that is currently on display apparently really, really likes step-ladders since they are the basis of the art that we see.
The teamwork thing is going to be tough. On Top Chef, the chef-testants are constantly having to work as a team. This makes sense though, because a restaurant kitchen is never just one chef; everyone must work together to get the food prepped, cooked, and out on time. In the art world, an artist may hire assistants to help with a particularly large project (such as an outdoor sculpture) but there is one clear leader who designs the piece. We are down to eight artists, and they are split into teams of four.
MILES, ERIK, JACLYN, and PEREGRINE:
I think this team is the team to beat. Miles and Jaclyn have more wins than anyone else, and Miles seems to have a good handle on sculpture. I don't think Peregrine has done any sculpture work yet, but she seems enthusiastic about the project and doesn't seem to have a big ego, so her personality is probably going to work well for the. Erik seems enthused about the project as well, but while he doesn't really have an ego problem, he has had controversy between himself and Jaclyn and himself and Miles. The opening of the show dwells on him for a few seconds more than anyone else, leading me to believe that he will be the one sent home this week. This team might not be the winning team after all.
RYAN, NICOLE, ABDI, and MARK:
Ryan is a painter without direction. Mark is a photographer. Abdi has trouble finishing his projects on time. The strongest person on this team, I believe, is Nicole, yet Nicole's work has not received much praise from the critics up until this point. She also seems very excited about the project, and we watch her commune with the space to try and harness its natural energy, and sure enough, she takes the lead of her team.
Miles takes the lead on the opposite team. Someone has to come up with the basic idea to which all other ideas are weighed against. Eric stresses that he wants to remain a vital part of the design process, so that he can defend his efforts when it comes time for the crit. Interestingly, Miles says that he expects Erik to 'flourish' in a team environment - only a few minutes later, Erik seems to disprove this. However, Peregrine still says that they have a great team.
Nicole has stolen rocks and pebbles from the space - I wonder if she plans on returning them?
Mark reveals to us that he does actually have experience with sculpture. What a relief for his teammates! We are shown a few snapshots of his metal sculpture work and they are really cool!
Watching Ryan try to break the plank of wood over his knee is hilarious.
I'm less than halfway through the show, and it's now painfully obvious that my boy Erik is going to be eliminated. We see Miles doing all sorts of fancy stuff to their wooden sculpture, and then we cut away to Erik, standing in the distance, looking lost and confused, and probably jealous of Miles since he's getting all the attention and praise from Jaclyn and Peregrine.
Something very interesting happens when Simon comes to check out the work. When he talks to Team Miles, Erik is standing on one side of the half-finished scuplture and the other three teammates are on the other. Simon asks what 'the message' of this piece is, and Erik is about to respond when Miles interupts him. Simon asks if they enjoy working as a team, and the three people who are not Erik all say 'yes'.
But what's most interesting is Erik's comment on his teammates delivering their 'typical art school crap' lines to Simon, underlining the fact that Erik is not a studied artist. Even though he might not realize it, Erik is obviously very jealous of his teammates (and probably the four artists on the competing team as well), even though he has shown plenty of talent. The fact that he has already survived five rounds of eliminations, on top of the fact that the producers of the show chose him to compete, speaks highly of his talent. If only he could believe in himself more and quit feeling inferior, he'd be a more formidable opponent.
Right after Simon leaves (or at least, that's what the editors want us to believe), Erik lashes out at Miles, saying (to Miles face!) that he thinks Miles is a fake and 'an actor', just playing the part of 'the tortured artist'. He says he is not excited about the sculpture and pretty much walks away from it. At this point, what can his teammates do? How can they talk him down when he's behaving like this? Did they treat him unfairly? It's hard to say - anything that I, the viewer, sees has been edited and molded into a linear story-line. I really liked Erik at the beginning, but there's no call for his abandonment of the project.
It's very interesting that Mark backs up Erik, saying that he feels the same way about Miles. I wonder if Mark, who is on the opposite team, will stick up for Erik when it's Erik's head on the chopping block.
Between commercials, we get a look at Ryan doing an impression of Miles. "This is how Miles makes coffee," he says, and then starts banging around the kitchen and spilling water on the floor. It's funny, but it belies Ryan's own jealousy of Miles. Not only has Miles won two challenges so far, he's getting all the attention from the remaining female artists. I'd be jealous too.
Sure enough, it is Erik that is sent home. This ruling was a little troubling to me, only because the judges seemed to like Miles/Peregrine/Jaclyn's (I purposely left Erik out) scuplture more than the other team. But the second team, Nicole/Ryan/Mark/Abdi all worked so harmoniously together, I think that the judges wouldn't have been able to figure out who to send home. I'm assuming that the rules the judges agreed to was that only a member of the 'losing' team would be eliminated. Erik had no justification for his actions, and he was the only one of the eight remaining artists who would have any cause to be sent home. What a fool he was for walking into his own elimination like that.
I hope to check out the space where the art was put up - I wonder if the two sculptures are still there?
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