The art stunt that was POWHIDA has a few folks wondering what all the fuss is about, including Brian Droitcour writing in ArtForum’s Scene & Herd column:
Powhida was, I thought, a mediocre draftsman singularly obsessed with his own career, offering nothing but rarefied op-ed cartoons about the markets and personalities that stand in its way. (He sold a drawing of Miami Beach as a shantytown at the Pulse Art Fair a couple years back.) Yet all around me at Marlborough the choir sang the praises of Saint William. […] Though I’d tried to recalibrate my estimation of Powhida’s work with the evening’s new insights, I couldn’t dissociate the means of expression from the man who chose them. This theatrical parody of the “Warholian” made Powhida, at best, a petty Santiago Sierra. Good intentions lurking in the shadows are not the stuff of an oeuvre. Some of my favorite artists are assholes. […] The afterparty at the Mondrian Hotel’s penthouse staged the cheesiest fantasies of Big Apple glamour. Just as he had at the Marlborough, the false Powhida lounged on a couch, drinking champagne and fondling girls, but now a dramatic view of Manhattan’s skyline was his photogenic backdrop. The venue brought out the worst in the opening’s two demographics: The Bushwick types enjoyed playing rockstars-and-groupies beyond irony, and the actual rich dudes felt entitled to shove their way to the front of the line for absinthe mojitos.
William, It Was Really Nothing (Scene&Herd/ArtForum)
