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The Exhibit: Finding The Next Great Artist 2023 is all set to premiere on Friday, March 3, 2023, at 9:00 pm ET on MTV. The new docu-competition series will have seven renowned artists battle it against each other to display some of their best exhibits to win over the judges and the experts until one wins the title, a grand cash prize of $100,000, and the chance to showcase their artwork.
The Exhibit: Finding The Next Great Artist 2023 is the newest addition to the reality competition series hosted by MTV News' Dometi Pongo and will see Melissa Chiu, the director of the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, as the lead judge. The show will also feature other renowned artists as guest judges, including Abigail DeVille, JiaJia Fei, Samuel Hoi, Adam Pendleton, Keith Rivers, Kenny Schachter, and Sarah Thornton.
More about the host and the judge on The Exhibit: Finding The Next Great Artist
Keep reading to learn more about the show's host and judge.
1) Dometi Pongo
Dometi Pongo works with several MTV news franchise shows, including its docuseries True Life Crime and Need To Know, a flagship program that analyzes trending news stories in-depth. According to his website, The Exhibit host works "at the intersection of pop culture and social justice."
The Chicago-based journalist also works with the Smithsonian Channel for its programs surrounding themes of pop culture, hip-hop, and American history, among others. He is also part of important equity discussions for Paramount's Courageous Conversations.
Dometi also regularly contributes to other channels, including ET Live and Sirius XM's Karen Hunter Show. He has also hosted Paramount's award shows, including Video Music Awards, Grammys, and MTV Movie & TV Awards.
The Exhibit host also works as a speaker and consultant, representing his firm, Pongo Strategy Group, which helps individuals tell better stories through multimedia. One of their works is described on his website:
"In partnership with Sankofa Ventures, Dometi’s annual group tours of Ghana, West Africa provided more than 70 American travelers from the African diaspora an opportunity to explore their ancestral lineage."
2) Melissa Chiu
Melissa Chiu holds a Ph.D. at the University of Western Sydney, focusing on Chinese contemporary art. She worked as an independent curator at the beginning of her career and worked at the university, where she was tasked with creating a collection of emerging Australian artists. She worked on it from scratch, creating a museum exhibition and publishing a catalog of the entire collection.
She founded Gallery 4A in 1996 while collaborating with Asian-Australian artists. According to her website, it is a non-profit art center that works towards "promoting dialogue in the Asia-Pacific region." She later renamed it the 4A Centre for Contemporary Asian Art, which resides in a two-storey heritage building in Sydney's Chinatown.
She moved to New York in 2001 to work for the Asia Society Museum as the curator of contemporary Asian and Asian-American art. She was promoted to Director of the Asia Society Museum three years later. Since then, The Exhibit judge has commissioned many exhibitions.
Some of the most popular exhibitions conducted under Melissa's supervision include Arts of Ancient Vietnam: From River Plain to Open Sea (2010), The Buddhist Heritage of Pakistan: Art of Gandhara (2011), and Iran Modern (2013), among many others.
In 2014, Melissa was named Director of the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden. The Exhibit judge contributed immensely, resulting in many audiences and several other exhibitions, including Surrealist Sculpture, Robert Irwin: All The Rules Will Change, and Yayoi Kusama: Infinity Mirrors. She was also appointed a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2020.
Every contestant on The Exhibit: Finding The Next Great Artist 2023 will be tasked with creating a museum exhibit using their artistic skills on Hirshhorn's mission to feature art that "responds to history in real-time."
The winner will win the title and the grand cash prize and earn a career-defining exhibit at the Smithsonian's Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington, DC. Don't forget to tune in to The Exhibit: Finding The Next Great Artist 2023 on Friday, March 3, 2023, at 9:00 pm ET on MTV.
