Be wary. It's going to get hairy. Bill Powers, the new judge with Jerry Saltz and Jeanne Greeberg-Rohatyn, for the new reality show THE NEXT GREAT ARTIST is partners with novelist JAMES FREY at Half Gallery. so reality is what, a con as art presented as fact?

I actually found them, Powers and Frey, to be affable fun gents when I did an interview with them in the fall.  Nontheless,  a small hailstorm of art shitlets will likely hit the fan once the business associates connection is brought to the fore. Links are from the Smoking Gun.com and Wikipedia tell the story.

Frey's fiction/nonfiction has not hurt sales of his books. People love his books and don't seem to mind the factual stretching. People don't care, so what if the book was claiming nonfiction status. So what if Bravo claims to have  The Next Great Artist and will that matter if the game is just a game?

Judges, even TV judges may find themsleves under a microscope should they become celebs, not just culture celebs. Or maybe not. Probably not. although just looking at the outfit China Chow is wearing in that Reuters Press Release ? Who designed that? She plays a really bad cop on Burn Notice.  Thanks to Patti Calderone for noticing that press photo - it looks like China got papered topside to bottom? Knowing people that work in the "reality TV" business have been freely acknowledging that "reality is what you make it".  It will be interesting what artists watching the show will think - and what they'll do in response. The title of the show claims that these individual judges are the decision makers of The Next Great Artist. Pretty big claim.