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)

It’s hard to read Damien Cave’s excellent story about William Powhida, the artist-satirist, in the New York Times without wondering whether Mr. Powhida’s vitriol is motivated by high standards or resentment.

“I don’t want to blow this place up,” Mr. Powhida said, admitting that he would love to see his own art here as opposed to at Pulse, where his work appeared this year. “A lot of us go back and forth about wanting to destroy this model, and wanting to support it.”

What bothers Mr. Powhida and several others in the art world who declined to be named for fear of offending wealthy collectors is the pre-eminence of money at the expense of work that challenges the artistic and economic status quo. Mr. Powhida described the convention center as a mall for “condo art” — polished works by recognizable names that are the equivalent of a BMW or a Bentley in the driveway. Continue Reading