The Smithsonian's Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden has partnered with MTV to create a new reality show in which contemporary artists will compete for a $100,000 cash prize and a chance to exhibit their work at the Washington, D.C., institution.
The Smithsonian said that seven "rising artists" were selected in consultation with curators at the Hirshhorn Museum after a national search.
The artists who were selected are Jamaal Barber, Frank Buffalo Hyde, Misha Kahn, Clare Kambhu, Baseera Khan, Jillian Mayer and Jennifer Warren.
Three of the artists -- Kahn, Khan and Kambhu -- are based in New York City. Barber joins the show from Atlanta while Mayer comes from Miami and Warren from Chicago. Hyde hails from Northfield, Minn.
The contestants will be charged with creating "commissions" that the museum said are "inspired by social themes reflected in the works in the collection by modern and contemporary artists.Melissa Chiu, the museum's director who will serve as the contest's lead judge, said in a statement that the show "exemplifies the Hirshhorn's radical accessibility to modern and contemporary art."
"The Hirshhorn is free to all, yet many people cannot travel to Washington, D.C," Chiu said.
Chiu will judge the competition in consultation with a rotating panel of art experts to evaluate the works made over the course of the contest.
The show will be hosted by Dometi Pongo, an anchor with MTV News.
According to Hyperallergic, the show won't eliminate the artists in each episode like in most competition reality shows. The Art Newspaper noted that past reality shows set in the art world, such as the short-lived Work of Art: The Next Great Artist on Bravo, have not been critical or commercial successes.
