Love it or hate it, Bravo’s art-reality-game show Work of Art: The Next Great Artist has definitely been a highlight of the 2010 art season. If nothing else, the series has prompted New York magazine art critic Jerry Saltz to embrace diaristic art blogging with a vengeance, with his weekly commentary on each episode -- sensitive, revealing, smart -- drawing scores of online comments. Saltz is easily one of our best-liked art writers, and we all hope that he can kick the blog habit and return to writing some actual art criticism when "Work of Art" comes to a close!

 

And the end is nigh. The as-yet-to-be-announced winner stars in an exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum, aptly titled "Work of Art: The Winner," Aug. 14-Oct. 17, 2010. At this writing, only three contestants remain -- Miles, the skilled but slightly OCD-plagued carpenter and photographer who is seeming more and more "Duchampian" in his attitude to the show; Jaclyn, the likable photographer and illustrator whose readiness to disrobe has somehow been cast as a critique of the male gaze; and the dark horse, Peregrine, the sparky illustrator who operates a "panty boutique" in her native Kansas City. For superfans, a special rsvp reception for the three finalists is slated for the museum on Aug. 11, 9-11:30 pm, but you didn’t hear it from us.

 

[Oops -- at this writing, five artists remain in "Work of Art": Abdi, Jaclyn, Miles, Nicole and Peregrine.]

 

ARTISTS AND WRITERS AGAINST SB1070

With Arizona pressing ahead with its notorious racial profiling law, SB1070 -- despite the injunction of a judge, who has put the kibosh on some of the more draconian aspects of the law -- artsy types are turning up the heat with a call for a boycott of the state. The Asian American Writers Workshop has put together "Wordstrike," an initiative decrying the law: "As writers, we are conscious of the power of the written word," the letter states. "The statutory language of SB 1070 wields the power of the state to decree that the narratives of certain people simply do not count."

 

Among the original signatories of the statement are lefty types like Tariq Ali, Noam Chomsky and Naomi Klein, but also famous novelists like Russell Banks, Junot Díaz, Michael Ondaatje and Salman Rushdie, as well as world music guru Ry Cooder, essayist and My Dinner with Andre writer Wallace Shawn, and the maestro of bad taste, John Waters. To view the whole letter -- or to sign on -- click here