Eight critics entered the ring on Saturday night at Arlington Arts Center, and only one exited. Okay, so AAC’s “Critique the Critics” fundraiser was more of a friendly competition than bloodsport, but the evening didn’t end without some folks getting their hands dirty. It’s just that it happened to be with finger paints.
The event included a silent auction to benefit the center, which presents and supports new work by mid-Atlantic artists, and runs exhibitions, educational programs and subsidizes studio spaces. Upstairs, attendees could visit some of those studios, and talk to the artists about the works-in-progress that were in various states of completion in the spaces. Downstairs was set up for the head-to-head competition that was to provide the evening’s entertainment.
AAC invited a number of local critics, politicians and media personalities to compete: ABC7’s Maureen Bunyan, DC Magazine Publisher Peter Abrahams, the Newseum’s Sonya Gavankar McKay, Delegate Patrick Hope from the Virginia House of Delegates, Justin Young from ReadySetDC, Food Network personality Mary Beth Albright, David Foster from the Virginia Board of Education, Peter Winant from WETA’s Around Town, and DCist’s own Ian Buckwalter and Kelly Rand. Eight of those ten participants were placed into a tournament bracket, going head-to-head in creating works of art. The other two (Rand and Winant) were on the “bench,” to be called upon if any of the contestants wanted to call in a substitute in any of the rounds of competition. The audience was to judge the works and determine a winner, who would then move on to the next round of competition. The gimmick: the artistic mediums were childhood implements — Etch A Sketch, Pipe Cleaners, Lite-Brite, Play-Doh, Legos, Tinker Toys and finger paint. Contestants had only five minutes to create, after which they had to explain their piece to the crowd; emcee Philippa Hughes of the Pink Line Project would then determine the winner based on the volume of applause.
DCist fared well, as Buckwalter managed to make it to the final round. He defeated Hope in a close first-round Lite-Brite battle, where his rendition of the “Jupiter and Beyond the Infinite” sequence from 2001: A Space Odyssey narrowly edged Hope’s picture of a rose. He then blatantly pandered to the audience in round two, where his Lego “Money Tree” beat out Foster’s Lego panda bear when Buckwalter explained to the crowd that AAC needed the support of folks like them, since there’s no such thing as a real money tree. Other works of art created by the group included a champagne glass from Albright and an elephant from Foster at the round one Play-Doh table, and a tinker-toy Segway by McKay in round two.
The final round was a finger painting showdown between Buckwalter and Young. Both competitors had learned from the early rounds that the audience pitch was as important as the work itself, and Buckwalter used his “This is Art” message (an idea given to him by Rand) to talk about the importance of AAC’s mission to inspire and support creativity of all kinds. Church’s painting of a Koi was, he explained, inspired by and a tribute to the struggles of the Japanese people to overcome the adversity of natural disaster.
Young won the vote. But the artists supported by Arlington Arts Center are, of course, the real winners.
