Introducing 'The Art Breakers'
October 9 2015
Video: Ovation
Hmm - someone's having another go at an art world reality TV show. It's called 'Art Breakers', which is a pun it seems on art broking and heart breaking, because the two stars Carol Lee Brosseau and Miller Gaffney are art dealers who happen to be blonde. And M.H. Miller, for Artnews, is not impressed:
The first episode features the following voice-over introduction from our stars:
Brosseau: Buying art is not for the faint of heart.
Gaffney: It’s a multibillion-dollar industry…
Brosseau: …and the biggest party around. The art world is our world.
Gaffney: Cuba! Vegas! Hollywood?
Brosseau: We travel the globe in search of the chicest galleries and hottest artists.
And so forth. With the exception of Jack Shainman—a dealer of great American artists, including Nick Cave, Hank Willis Thomas, and Carrie Mae Weems—whose brief appearance on this show is, as far as I can tell, a low point in his career, I’ve never heard of most of the “chicest” galleries nor of almost any of the “hottest” artists. (This isn’t to say that I’m the last word on the contemporary canon, or that these people aren’t perfectly nice, but hey, I also watch the art market every day, to paraphrase my subjects. I want a TV show, too!) One of my favorite moments on Art Breakers comes when Brosseau and Gaffney walk into a Los Angeles gallery called Kopeikin Gallery (I have never heard of it) and inquire about a photograph by an artist named Blake Little (I have never heard of him). They have the following exchange with a gallery employee.
Brosseau: Is that Blake Little?
Gallery Employee: Yeah, he dumps ten gallons of honey on each of his models.
Brosseau: That’s so hot.
Gaffney: He is the most cutting edge—he is hot right now.
Gallery Employee: He’s super hot.
Update - is it possible that Art Breakers is some sort of parody, and the joke's on us? Genius if so.
Update II - a reader writes:
Recently, on Art Breakers...
Brosseau: *squints while reading small sign next to portrait on gallery wall* "Hey, it says this dude with the sunflower is Anthony van Dyck."
Gaffney: "Hey, my mom says he was in that old-school movie 'Chitty Chitty Bang Bang'".
Brosseau: 'Chitty Chitty Bang Bang' is so hot right now.
Gaffney: So hot.
* Opening credits *
