Rashaad Newsome’s Rap Joust Embarrasses Everybody

If Marlborough Gallery had a reputation to worry about, they would be busy doing a lot of damage control for last Wednesday's rap joust, directed by Rashaad Newsome.  A real-life manifestation of POWHIDA's mock-douchebag performance a few months back, it was another masturbatory celebration of wealth that sidelined the performers and sincerely made everyone look like VIP douchebags.

Rashaad Newsome’s rap joust had been billed as “an open call for participants, free and open to the public,” though we were advised that “space was limited and would be granted on a first-come, first-serve basis.” This meant that we were to wait in a freezing cold, roped-off line outside, whilst watching earlier-coming VIPs guzzle champagne through the gallery windows.  Throughout the duration of our half-hour wait, a lime green, top-down Lamborghini (?) unbelievably blasted bass beats, possibly with keys left in the ignition.  Editor Will Brand half-joked, “Fuck this art writing gig.  I’m taking the car.”  Then we longingly stared at the car until the bouncer finally tapped us in.

Another hour was spent drinking champagne in the gallery. Among Newsome’s many admirers, Performa founder RoseLee Goldberg has gushed, “He has a way of translating ideas that appear on MTV or appear on the street and somehow twisting it or distilling it — he puts a frame around it.”  “Putting a frame around it” is just another way of saying he makes MTV imagery look like art. Here, the frame is less art than gold leaf; the space was filled with Newsome’s coats-of-bling, fleur de lis-style, impeccably crafted collages of lithic jewelry, shiny hubcaps, watches, and luscious locks of Pantene hair, crafted to look like opulent European jewels and textiles.  By arranging images of bling in decorative weaves, Newsome has transformed them into the luxuries that they imitate. That Warhol-Koons-esque irony is overshadowed by the guiltless reality of their marketability; the Times reported that over half the works sold before the show even opened.

By the time Newsome and his judges were heralded in by hooded trumpeters, the crowd was loud and drunk. Four out of five of the throned judges were white, the idea being that these are art world nobles: Alanna Heiss, the founder of PS1, Julia Kaganskiy, editor of the Creators Project, Karin Nelson, editor of W Magazine, fashionista party promoter Andre J, and Charlie Ahearn, director of “Wild Style.”  As a documenter of hip-hop culture since the late 70's, Ahearn was arguably the only person qualified to judge a rap battle. Chris Chambers, the PR rep for artists such as Drake and Outkast, had been advertised but didn't make it to the event.