Rob Pruitt and Master of Ceremonies Glenn O'Brien at Webster Hall for Rob Pruitt's 2010 Art Awards Photo: Roger Kisby © The Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation

Rob Pruitt's 2010 Art Awards Rob Pruitt and Master of Ceremonies Glenn O'Brien at Webster Hall for Rob Pruitt's 2010 Art Awards Photo: Roger Kisby © The Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation

Rob Pruitt has teamed up with writer-editor and art world veteran Glenn O’Brien to host the second annual Rob Pruitt’s 2010 Art Awards on December 8, 2010 at Webster Hall. Pruitt considers the event a performance-based artwork that parodies self-congratulatory Hollywood awards ceremonies, while relishing his own role as ringmaster and host. Other presenters will include critic Jerry Saltz (of the TV show Work of Art), Mary Heilmann, the 2009 “Artist of the Year,” Marina Abramovic, and John Currin among others.

The awards ceremony honours the stalwarts of the art world, who are mostly hand-picked by him, while benefitting the Guggenheim Foundation and the not-for-profit, White Columns.  And this year, the Lifetime Achievement Awards is going to… Jonas Mekas and Martha Rosler, and The Artist-Educator Achievement Award, a new category, will be presented to Marilyn Minter.

Rob Pruitt's 2010 Art Awards Rob Pruitt and Master of Ceremonies Glenn O'Brien at Webster Hall for Rob Pruitt's 2010 Art Awards Photo: Roger Kisby © The Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation

According to the Guggenheim’s press release over a 1,000 individuals from the art world participate in the nomination process and the categories and nominees are:

Alternative Space of the Year
179 Canal, New York
Artists Space, New York
Cleopatra’s, Brooklyn, New York
Light Industry, Brooklyn, New York

Alternative Project of the Year
Apartment Show, various locations, New York
edia Int’l Group, Foundation Barbin, New York
INDEPENDENT, New York
Jennifer Rubell, Creation, Performa 09, New York

Artist of the Year
Marina Abramovic
John Baldessari
Louise Bourgeois
Trisha Donnelly

Blogger or Critic of the Year
Howard Halle
Paddy Johnson
Jerry Saltz
Linda Yablonsky

Curator of the Year
Massimiliano Gioni
Laura Hoptman
Chrissie Iles
Neville Wakefield

Exhibition outside the United States
John Baldessari: Pure Beauty, Tate Modern, London
Rosemarie Trockel: Deliquescence of the Mother, Kunsthalle Zürich
Felix Gonzalez-Torres: Specific Objects without Specific Form, Wiels Contemporary Art Centre, Brussels
Matthew Barney: Prayer Sheet with the Wound and the Nail, Schaulager, Basel

Group Show of the Year, Gallery
Lush Life, various locations, New York
Picture Industry (Goodbye to All That), Regen Projects, Los Angeles
Primary Atmospheres: Works from California 1960–1970, David Zwirner, New York
Your History Is Not Our History: New York in the 1980s, Haunch of Venison, New York

Group Show of the Year, Museum
At Home/Not At Home: Works from the Collection of Martin and Rebecca Eisenberg, Hessel Museum of Art, Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson, New York
Greater New York, P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center, Long Island City, New York
In & Out of Amsterdam: Travels in Conceptual Art, 1960–1976, Museum of Modern Art, New York
2010 Whitney Biennial Exhibition, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York

New Artist of the Year
Michele Abeles
Tauba Auerbach
Liz Magic Laser
Ryan McNamara

The Rob Pruitt Award
To be announced the evening of December 8, 2010

Solo Show of the Year, Gallery
Claude Monet: Late Work, Gagosian Gallery, New York
Gelitin: Blind Sculpture, Greene Naftali Gallery, New York
Jonathan Horowitz: Go Vegan! Gavin Brown’s Enterprise, New York
Trisha Donnelly, Casey Kaplan Gallery, New York

Solo Show of the Year, Museum
Marina Abramovic: The Artist Is Present, Museum of Modern Art, New York
Heat Waves in a Swamp: The Paintings of Charles Burchfield, Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, and Whitney Museum of American Art, New York
Otto Dix, Neue Galerie, New York
Yves Klein: With the Void, Full Powers, Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C., and Walker Art Center, Minneapolis

Rob Pruitt’s 2010 Art Awards, Wednesday, December 8, 2010, 7-8 pm: Red carpet arrivals and cocktail reception, 8-10 pm: Awards ceremony and dinner. Webster Hall, 125 East 11th Street, New York City

The Pruitt Award Is an empty champagne bottle surrounded by plastic ice, which is also a fully functioning lamp.

Was the art world ready for its Oscar moment? Regardless of that answer, the first annual Art Awards presented by Rob Pruitt took place last night in the Guggenheim’s rotunda.

A few choice members of the Hollywood glitterati (Kylie Mingoue, Julianne Moore, James Franco) blended into triviality among the bevy of art celebrities that were in attendance. As an extra perquisite, Rob Pruitt recruited as emcees the Delusional Downtown Divas, a satiric troupe of young, hipster women with an art-world pedigree (and a winsome schoolgirl crush on fellow presenter Jeffrey Deitch). In videos interspersed between the presentations, the Divas schemed to infiltrate the art establishment by any means possible. In one segment that was an animated homage to From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, they pitched a tent in the Guggenheim, doing their laundry and shaving their legs in the lobby fountain. In another, they made a pilgrimage to the downtown studio of a wryly shamanic Joan Jonas, deadpanning, “How do you know when you’re performing and when you’re just walking down the street?”

Ms. Jonas took home a lifetime achievement award, as did the curator Kasper Konig. Since the main categories weren’t split along the lines of actor/actress, everyone was keeping an eye on the gender balance, though, in the end, the women nominees ended up taking the majority of the awards home.

The Delusional Downtown Divas and Rob Pruitt

The Kanye-West moment of the evening was undoubtedly art vandal-turned gallery owner Tony Shafrazi’s acceptance speech for Best Group Show of the Year for Who’s Afraid of Jasper Johns? Upon taking the stage, Mr. Shafrazi narrowly escaped being pummeled with a dinner roll. His speech was peppered with jeers from spectators, clearly mesmerized by his egregiously narcissistic discourse, “I’ve probably known for a long time that I was great. This award comes as no great surprise to me.” Known more for his scandalous track record than his curatorial capabilities, Shafrazi was arrested in 1974 for spray painting “Kill Lies All” on Picasso’s Guernica when it was on display in the Museum of Modern Art. On the matter of destroying a priceless work of art, he says “I wanted to bring the art absolutely up to date, to retrieve it from art history and give it life. Maybe that’s why the Guernica action remains so difficult to deal with. I tried to trespass beyond that invisible barrier that no one is allowed to cross; I wanted to dwell within the act of the painting’s creation, get involved with the making of the work, put my hand within it and by that act encourage the individual viewer to challenge it, deal with it and thus see it in its dynamic raw state as it was being made, not as a piece of history.” And this was only one of the evening’s colorful winners/presenters.

The 200 guests enjoyed a seated three-course dinner that accompanied the show, and resulted in sucking a lot of energy out of the room, as did the monotone and banal acceptance speeches that seemed to drag on endlessly, the background music to cut long speeches short seemingly overlooked. Guests perked up briefly when Mr. Pruitt bestowed the “The Rob Pruitt Award,” voted on by a committee of one. It went to the artist Cynthia Plaster Caster, who has been making casts of rock stars’ genitalia for decades and is the subject of an upcoming documentary. Ms. Plaster Caster brandished her masterpiece, the Jimi Hendrix, on the podium as Mr. Pruitt giggled, confident that though first awards shows can be bumpy, he had successfully negotiated his way through the ceremony and had begun paving the way for next year. You could see him stealthily reclaiming ownership of the event, reminding guests that the art world will never take itself as seriously as Hollywood.

The final list of winners is:

• Artist of the Year: Mary Heilmann
• Curator of the Year: Connie Butler
• Exhibition Outside the United States: Jeff Koons, Versailles, Château de Versailles, France
• Group Show of the Year, Gallery: Who’s Afraid of Jasper Johns? Tony Shafrazi Gallery, New York
• Group Show of the Year, Museum: The Pictures Generation, 1974–1984, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
• New Artist of the Year: Ryan Trecartin
• The Rob Pruitt Award: Cynthia Plaster Caster
• Solo Show of the Year, Gallery: Manzoni: A Retrospective, Gagosian Gallery, New York
• Solo Show of the Year, Museum: Martin Kippenberger: The Problem Perspective, Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, and Museum of Modern Art, New York
• Writer of the Year: Jerry Saltz

Rob Pruitt and the Delusional Downtown Divas

The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum recently announced with event partner Calvin Klein Collection a new art event premiering in 2009: Rob Pruitt’s The First Annual Art Awards at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in Association with White Columns, to be held on Thursday, October 29, 2009.

Artist Rob Pruitt, whose conceptual practice is rooted in a pop sensibility and a playful critique of art world structures, has conceived the event as a performance-based artwork which follows the format of a Hollywood awards ceremony. The Art Awards will be an annual celebration of select individuals, exhibitions, and projects that have made a significant impact on the field of contemporary art during the previous year, specifically, for this year’s ceremony, from January 2008 to June 2009.

According to Mr. Pruitt, “This annual gesture will function as a community-building and philanthropic event for the Guggenheim Museum, White Columns and, in 2009, Studio in a School, while simultaneously mobilizing the wide ranging talents and energies of the international arts community, focusing on our mutual admiration and support for one another’s unique endeavors.” Mr. Pruitt continued, “With one eye on supporting our great institutions, and the other on injecting our community with a renewed sense of energy, spirit, and a dash of showbiz glamour, we are pleased to announce this very unique event.”

Richard Armstrong, Director of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation and Museum, stated, “As the impresario behind the First Annual Art Awards, Rob Pruitt presents a daring new event model injected with the humor that underscores his work. Pruitt’s orchestration of this performative piece—with the rotunda as center stage—is aligned with the Guggenheim’s mission to continue to engage and present contemporary artists.”

“The First Annual Art Awards, held at the Guggenheim Museum, will celebrate today’s most interesting and respected artists, in an entirely innovative way,” said Malcolm Carfrae, EVP Global Communications, Calvin Klein, Inc. “Calvin Klein, Inc. has always been a huge supporter of the arts and we are thrilled to be a part of such a groundbreaking event that celebrates the arts community and gives it the recognition it deserves.”

Pruitt has invited the Delusional Downtown Divas to preside over the event as Masters of Ceremonies, and Glenn O’Brien will step in as the Announcer, or, as Pruitt describes his role, as “the Voice of God.” An additional distinguished list of presenters will participate in distributing the awards, created by Pruitt to resemble a celebratory bucket of champagne that also serves as a fully functional lamp. The presenters will include Cecily Brown, Sofia Coppola, James Franco, Knight Landesman, Nate Lowman, and Mary-Kate Olsen, among others. Original music has been composed by Matthew Friedberger of the Fiery Furnaces, who will perform at the event. Christine Muhlke, food editor of the New York Times Magazine, is curating the cuisine for the seated dinner.

Lifetime Achievement Awards, determined by Rob Pruitt along with organizing partners the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum and White Columns, will be awarded to Joan Jonas and Kasper König. In addition, a group of more than four hundred art world professionals has been invited to form a Nominating Council that will select four nominees in nine categories that focus primarily on exhibitions and projects that took place over the preceding eighteen months (January 2008 to June 2009), in the United States, as well as one category recognizing an international exhibition. The Rob Pruitt Award is being decided solely by the artist. Of the following list of nominees, a larger group (including the Nominating Council) will establish the eventual winners, who will be announced at the live awards ceremony on October 29. The ten categories—in addition to the Lifetime Achievement Award—and the nominees for each category are:

Artist of the Year
• Louise Bourgeois
• Urs Fischer
• Dan Graham
• Mary Heilmann

Curator of the Year
• Klaus Biesenbach
• Daniel Birnbaum
• Connie Butler
• Massimiliano Gioni

Exhibitions Outside the United States
• Francis Bacon, Tate Britain, London
• Jeff Koons, Versailles, Château de Versailles, France
• Mike Kelley: Educational Complex Onwards: 1995–2008, Wiels Contemporary Art Centre, Brussels
• Wolfgang Tillmans: Lighter, Hamburger Bahnhof, Museum für Gegenwart, Berlin

Group Show of the Year, Gallery
• A Twilight Art, Harris Lieberman, New York
• Who’s Afraid of Jasper Johns? Tony Shafrazi Gallery, New York
• Your Gold Teeth II, Marianne Boesky Gallery, New York
• ZERO in New York, Sperone Westwater, New York

Group Show of the Year, Museum
• After Nature, New Museum, New York
• The Pictures Generation, 1974–1984, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
• The Quick and the Dead, Walker Art Center, Minneapolis
• WACK! Art and the Feminist Revolution, P.S. 1 Contemporary Art Center, Long Island City, New York

New Artist of the Year
• Elad Lassry
• Daniel McDonald
• Marlo Pascual
• Ryan Trecartin

The Rob Pruitt Award
• To be announced the evening of October 29, 2009

Solo Show of the Year, Gallery
• Cindy Sherman, Metro Pictures, New York
• Manzoni: A Retrospective, Gagosian Gallery, New York
• Paul Sharits, Greene Naftali Gallery, New York
• Picasso: Mosqueteros, Gagosian Gallery, New York

Solo Show of the Year, Museum
• Dan Graham: Beyond, Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, and Whitney Museum of American Art, New York
• Lawrence Weiner: As Far as the Eye Can See, Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, and Whitney Museum of American Art, New York
• Live Forever: Elizabeth Peyton, New Museum, New York
• Martin Kippenberger: The Problem Perspective, Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, and Museum of Modern Art, New York

Writer of the Year
• Tim Griffin
• John Kelsey
• Walter Robinson
• Jerry Saltz