A new BBC2 series, Saatchi's Best of British, will see him preside over a contemporary art reality show, comparable with Lloyd Webber's I'd Do Anything. Talented hopefuls (I've put that phrase in as blog-fodder ...) will attend his "intensive art school, where they will be tutored by top contemporary artists." The show will "attempt to discover the next Damien Hirst or Tracey Emin." Well, I don't suppose anyone would expect it to discover the next Cy Twombly or Jasper Johns.
Does anything that happens in a reality talent show matter? What are you saying about art by becoming involved in such nonsense?
It's of a piece with the desperate inclusiveness of Saatchi's online activities, and the staggering, yet boring, plurality of British art now. "Everyone an artist", said Joseph Beuys, and in Britain this seems to have come true. Or, as Rupert Pupkin put it in Martin Scorsese's prophetic film The King of Comedy, you can have anything you want, so long as you're prepared to pay the price. We can all be artists so long as we're prepared to forget the idea that art has any worth or meaning. Art is easy if it's rubbish. Britain's Got Talent? No, what we actually believe is "Britain doesn't need talent."
Jonathan Jones: Reality TV has nothing to offer the art world
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