Pretty Much Pop #48: The Arts in Reality TV w/ Skin Wars’ Robin Slonina

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 50:49 — 46.9MB)

Fine art and reality TV are typically rated our highest and lowest forms of entertainment, yet creative competition shows combine the two. Robin Slonina is a world-renowned body painter and served as a judge (along with RuPaul!) on the show Skin Wars. She joins Mark, Erica, and Brian to figure out the degree to which that format lets the art shine through.

We also touch on Work of Art-The Next Great Artist, Face Off, American Idol, Project Runway, cooking shows, art as commodity, public art like the BLM D.C. street mural, paint-offs and other game-show gimmicks, and the RuPaul ethic.

Behold these relevant articles:

• “The Best Creative Skill Reality Series Ever” at Ranker
• “The Good, The Bad and the OMFG: Art’s Complicated Relationship with Reality Television” by Shannon Lee
• “10 Years Later, a Look Back at Art’s First Reality Show” by Kat Herriman
• “Skill-Based Contests Are the Best Kind of Reality TV” by Margaret Lions
• “25 Bonkers Reality Competition Shows You Forgot Existed” by Reid Nakamura
• “Weekly Q&A: Robin Slonina on Emphemeral Art, Dirty Charades and ‘Skin Wars'” by Leslie Ventura

This episode includes bonus discussion that you can hear now by supporting the podcast at patreon.com/prettymuchpop. While we always offer that, this time it’s special: Robin stuck around and talked to us in a very spirited way about current political issues surrounding the protests. Plus, body painters challenge public nudity laws, and some potential future politically active African-American artist guests for us are discussed.

This podcast is part of the Partially Examined Life podcast network and is curated by openculture.com.

Oh, and Erica wanted photographic proof of Brian and Mark knowing Robin in the before-times: