NEW YORK— So long was the line that stretched down Horatio Street and along Hudson in the West Village on Saturday morning that you might have thought it was for a premiere screening of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince — if you didn’t know it ended at the doors of alternative art space White Columns. Saturday was the final casting call for the new art reality show tentatively called The Untitled Art Project, which is being produced for Bravo by Sex and the City star Sarah Jessica Parker in collaboration with Magical Elves, the company responsible for the popular reality contest shows Top Chef and Project Runway, on which the new art show will be modeled.

Since plans for it were announced, an aura of secrecy has shrouded the show, which has now held casting calls in Los Angeles (at alternative space LaxArt), Chicago (at the school of the Art Institute), and Miami (at Frederick Snitzer Gallery) and aims to begin filming in September. Neither the judges nor the host has been named, and the art world has been aflutter with speculation about the extent to which the show’s producers will reach out to art professionals for guidance. And yet a bit of light was thrown on the casting process by Simon de Pury, head of auction house Phillips de Pury & Co., who was spotted as he was about to enter White Columns and says he has been serving on the preliminary panel of judges during the casting calls. (Another preliminary panelist in New York was New York magazine art critic Jerry Saltz. In L.A., the panel included collector Dean Valentine, dealer Patrick Painter, and artist Charles Gaines. Jim Lutes, a professor at the Art Institute, was among the panelists in Chicago.)

De Pury said he’s been “impressed with the process” so far and that “from what I’ve seen, it’s been more than legitimate. At no point in the process has the production company said, ‘Take this person because they’re better on TV.’ I’ve seen artists whom you feel have a chance to make it long term.” To put the show in context, de Pury pointed out that it, along with certain Web sites that allow emerging artists to promote their work, is “just another way to get known. It’s wrong to pooh-pooh it.”

The hundreds of applicants, some of whom arrived as early as 1:30 a.m. to grab a spot in the line (which, by 9:30, a half-hour before casting was to begin, snaked past Gansevoort Street), were asked to bring an original artwork for review. Some sat in front of large bubble-wrapped paintings, others fiddled with digital videos on laptops, and still others carried photographs zipped up inside portfolios. One painted directly onto a nearly naked woman.

Sarah Douglas spoke with several of these aspirants to the show’s 13 contestant slots and the winning prize of cash, a gallery show, and a museum tour. Their range of art training ran the gamut from self-taught to M.F.A. She asked them why they would want to be on a reality show and how they replied to some of the application’s more provocative questions, like who do you think is the most overrated artist, what’s clichéd in the art world right now, and what is the most scandalous thing you’ve ever done as an artist.

Click on the photo gallery at left to read what they said.

Sarah Douglas is Senior Correspondent for ARTINFO, Art+Auction, and Modern Painters.

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