Rob Pruitt

By James Franco for Interview

There's great irony in the fact that Rob Pruitt is the man putting together the Guggenheim’s First Annual Art Awards, a sort of tongue-and-cheek version of the Oscars for contemporary American art. It’s the kind of irony more befitting a Hollywood film script than the New York art scene. On October 29, before an assemblage of heavyweights in the Guggenheim Museum rotunda, faux-champagne-bottle-in-ice-bucket lamp awards will be doled out to the winners of Solo Show of the Year, Group Show of the Year, Curator of the Year, and Artist of the Year, among a myriad of other categories. While a committee helped select the nominees, the awards show itself was 45-year-old Pruitt’s brainchild—his way of giving back to the art-world community that has made him one of its own unorthodox, uninhibited stars. http://www.interviewmagazine.com/art/rob-pruitt/