From singing, dancing, dating and even baking, fans have seen it all when it comes to reality television. But what if we told you that there’s a new show out on the market that features the best of the best in visual art?
Earlier this month, MTV teamed up with The Smithsonian to add a new series to their slew of TV shows and it’s truly like none other. Titled The Exhibit: Finding the Next Great Artist, the first-of-its-kind docu-competition series follows seven diverse artists who compete for a $100,000 cash prize and a once-in-a-lifetime, career-defining exhibit at the Smithsonian’s Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington, DC. Each rising artist is tasked to create a museum exhibit based on the Hirshhorn’s mission to feature art that “responds to history in real time.”
“I think folks don’t realize how much overlap there is between creative processes all over across the spectrum, right… I think that when you look at that creative process, whether you’re a fan of music, a fan of pop culture, whatever you’re fan of, you’ll appreciate these artists’ approach to creating these works and that kind of shines through as we shed light on the creative process throughout the six weeks,” Dometi Pongo told Celeb Secrets in an exclusive interview.
The show takes place over the course of six weeks. Each week, all seven contestants, who were chosen from thousands of applicants, compete to create a piece or what they call “commission” on the show that best demonstrates the theme.
Each week a person is selected to win the particular commission, yet no one is voted off. Some of the top judges on the show are very high-profile artists including Melissa Chiu, who is the Museum Director of the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington, DC. Other judges on the show include Adam Pendleton, Abigail DeVille, Keith Rivers, Kenny Schachter, Sarah Thornton, JiaJia Fei and Samuel Hoi. The winner of the show will receive $100,000 and an exhibit at the Hirshhorn Museum.
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Pongo told Celeb Secrets that the artists on the show each taught him something. While the show was a competition show, it sometimes had incredibly vulnerable moments. He shared that at one point in the series, he had an emotional moment with one of the contestants which was behind the scenes. Yet, the producers were able to capture it on camera without being intrusive.
“We were having a conversation just as men about loss and vulnerability and as men, is it okay to cry? Is it okay to really process these things?” Pongo shared.
Pongo loved being able to have moments like that on the show, and thinks there is a lot that can be learned from this production – simply about art and diversity.
“They wanted diverse artists (on the show) because it’s diverse perspectives that make the challenges interesting,” said Pongo told. “What ends up happening, is this collaborative process where artists are helping each other work on these projects together and you’ve got artists who are at different points of their career. So some have shown at museums before, some have been classically trained, others are self-taught, some are painters,” he went on to say.
He continued to point out that the show is a “perfect” example of what he wants to be doing in the industry. He likes to do “a little bit of everything,” and wants to continue that in the future.
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For more on The Exhibit: Finding The Next Great Artist, watch our full interview with Dometi below. And don’t forget to catch new episodes every Friday at 10PM ET/PT on MTV and every Tuesday at 9PM ET/PT on The Smithsonian Channel.
