It will run weekly on the Smithsonian Channel — but beginning Friday evening, each episode will air first on the channel that brought the world “Beavis and Butt-Head.” (And some compelling documentaries, to be fair.)
At the end of the six-episode series, the winner will see their work exhibited at the Hirshhorn in downtown Washington. There’s a $100,000 prize, to boot, because television.
Reality TV isn’t entirely foreign to museums or the artist circuit — artisanal and craft competition shows abound. In 2010, Bravo debuted “Work of Art: The Next Great Artist,” which saw up-and-coming artists compete for a similar six-figure prize and the chance to show their work in the Brooklyn Museum of Art. Still, the notion of the Smithsonian’s contemporary art museum curating an exhibit through a televised competition has inspired some snark. (A Wall Street Journal review dubbed the series “Smithsonian Idol.”)
Melissa Chiu, director of the Hirshhorn and the show’s lead judge, knows there will be skeptics. “Although people wouldn’t ordinarily think of a connection between TV and museums — because in some ways, there’s popular culture and then there’s museums — we actually think that there’s a lot that can be gained from a collaboration like this.”
Chiu was appointed director of the Hirshhorn in 2014, and her tenure has been defined by bold, immersive efforts to draw more visitors to the museum, which boasts a 12,000-piece collection of modern and contemporary art.
The Hirshhorn saw its biggest visitor count in decades in 2017, when art lovers flocked to a 12-week exhibition featuring Yayoi Kusama’s “Infinity Mirrors.” The following year, the museum unveiled the Hirshhorn Eye (or Hi), a mobile art guide that allows visitors to access artist interviews and other context while browsing the gallery.
“This partnership and TV show is about the culmination of a lot of the thinking around what a 21st-century museum should be,” Chiu said. “We see ourselves as the national museum of modern art, and with that national mandate, we know that we present art here in Washington — but we also know that we would like to reach audiences beyond the city.”
“The Exhibit” started as a collaboration between the Hirshhorn and Smithsonian Channel, but MTV soon joined the production, in part because both the Smithsonian Channel and MTV are owned by Paramount and operate under the same corporate umbrella. Chiu said the partnership also made sense because both brands recognized “that their audiences were interested in art.” Dometi Pongo, the enthusiastic host of “The Exhibit,” also has a presence on both networks.
The branding powers-that-be prefer to call the series “a docu-competition,” but vestiges of reality TV prevail on “The Exhibit.” Some of the contestants are a lot — they are artists after all — and there are moments of rivalry and not-so-humble brags (“I’m a very competitive person,” one painter says in the opener. “I’m trying to change the world with what I make.”).
Each episode gives the contestants a limited time to create artwork around the commissioned theme — 10 hours across two days to explore gender in their chosen medium; just seven hours to evoke “the immediacy of social media.” The judges score each piece on its originality, execution and concept — choosing a winner each episode and a champion at the end of the series. The episodes were recorded last spring, so only the viewers will be in suspense on who the ultimate victor is.
Chiu — who wears her own elegant vintage ensembles over the course of the series — and Pongo, the show’s host, somewhat evoke the Heidi Klum and Tim Gunn check-ins on “Project Runway” as they consult with the artists throughout the course of each commission.
Though Chiu said she’s a fan of the Bravo fashion design series, her main reference for “The Exhibit” was “The Great British Baking Show” — a fan-favorite reality series known for its relatively drama-free competition. “Reality as a genre can at times be harsh,” she said. “We were interested in creating an environment within the program of both collegiality and encouragement and support, because that’s what we do here at the museum.”
Chiu said the show is unique in part because the contestants — chosen from thousands of applicants by the Hirshhorn’s curators — are already working artists. “They already have a skill set. They come to us already as artists,” she said. “It was very important for us to be respectful of that.”
Overall, Chiu says, “The Exhibit” is “really about allowing viewers an insider’s glimpse into what it’s like for an artist in this world, what it’s like to really create something from nothing.” The series features guest judges including artists Adam Pendleton and Kenny Schacter, along with other art world insiders such as JiaJia Fei.
The show was shot partly at the Hirshhorn, including in never-before-filmed spaces like the museum’s collection storage vault, an industrial wonderland where contestants were surrounded by the work of artists they admire. Other scenes were recorded at the Maryland Institute College of Art. “It was very important for the program to have content that was art history related,” said Chiu. “How can we help viewers to better understand what we do as a museum or the art we present?”
With “The Exhibit,” the Hirshhorn is eyeing the tens of millions of households that have access to the Smithsonian Channel and its arguably hipper sister network. RuPaul’s popular “Drag Race” franchise will lead into “The Exhibit” on MTV each Friday night, with Smithsonian Channel airing the same episode the following Tuesday. There are no plans to stream the competition series.
But ratings aren’t the Hirshhorn’s only goal. “If one child or one person decided to visit a museum, or one viewer decided to pick up a paintbrush and paint … these are all things that we believe elevate the creative potential of our society,” Chiu said. “And we would consider that a success.”
The Exhibit premieres Friday at 9 p.m. Eastern time on MTV. Each episode will rerun the following Tuesday at 9 p.m. on the Smithsonian Channel.