School of Saatchi, BBC Two/ Gracie!, BBC Four | reviews, news & interviews

School of Saatchi, BBC Two/ Gracie!, BBC Four

Art goes X Factor, and Gracie Fields goes to war

by Adam SweetingMonday, 23 November 2009

A dozen artistic hopefuls square up to the Charles Saatchi challenge

Thanks to the shenanigans of Brit-art superstars like Messrs Emin and Hirst, Art has become a lucrative appendage of pop culture, so it’s only logical that it should be given its own version of X Factor, with a bit of Apprentice-style authoritarianism bolted on for good measure. In School of Saatchi, a panel of judges sifts through a long list of hopefuls who are whittled down to 12, then six, then finally to the chosen one who will be installed in a London studio for three years under Charles Saatchi’s patronage.

Having witnessed Eugenie’s challenging juxtaposition of an Ikea door-handle and a lipstick-stained whistle, Kate was hailing her as an heir to Marcel Duchamp

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Permalink Submitted by ed (not verified) on Tue, 24/11/2009 - 17:00

Probably one of the worst programmes I have seen, the so called art critics where dreadful and didnt have a clue about art, I mean real art as in drawing and painting not rubbish modern art where it has no meaning or skill involved, you could tell the critics and the paricipents didnt have a clue what they where going on about they where clutching at straws trying to make something up, when they acutally didnt mean anything it just shows how bad modern art is and there is no place for it in the real art world

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Permalink Submitted by Debbie Nicoll (not verified) on Tue, 24/11/2009 - 19:07

The only artist on last night's episode of School of Saatchi was the young girl with the portrait of a tattoo man - I think her name was Khana Evans? She said the only sensible thing on the show when she said that it was all 'bollocks!'. She's damn right!!! The talented ones walked and the talentless have a lot to learn about real art.

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Permalink Submitted by Kirstie Sainsbu... (not verified) on Wed, 25/11/2009 - 10:42

I think it is very sad that obviously talented artists such as Khana Evans were not picked to display to Charles Saatchi. Her portrait of a tatooed man was stunning and her attitude towards her own concept of art was refreshing. With a talent like hers she wil succeed anyway!

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Permalink Submitted by Neon (not verified) on Thu, 26/11/2009 - 18:03

I feel for all contestants. Facing the insecurity and jealousies of some self-proclaimed slick art experts. Even though the process and its panel is much annoying, the prize for the chosen one will be very real. The absurd indeed reached its climax when one of the jurors claimed: "Even I could have done that drawing much better" - but you didn't ! Very sad is, that nobody on the show obviously knows what art really is. If the young artists like to know what art is, I am happy to enlighten them any time. For the panel I am afraid it might be to late. Neon, London

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Permalink Submitted by Brit Artist (not verified) on Sun, 29/11/2009 - 13:17

The only good artist picked of the lost was a young artist who didnt have any academic experience but worked with watercolours - dont know his name but shows you dont need to have a degree to make good art.

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Permalink Submitted by Gary (not verified) on Tue, 15/12/2009 - 08:34

I work in a major art gallery and one of my roles is to demonstrate to the public how wonderful, challenging and enlightening contemporary art can be. How disappointing then that this programme seemed no more than a parody of contemporary art. The critics (some of whom I usually admire) immersed themselves in clichés, showed a deliberate lack of a wider understanding of subject, and cooed over such terrible work. If there aim was to highlight some of the more unfathomable sides to art and put people off for life then they really succeeded. Armando Iannucci couldn't have produced a script that mocked contemporary art so well. Sadly it wasn't meant to be funny, which just made me groan with embarrassment.

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