Jayson Scott Musson

Overview

In writing, performance and visual art that incisively satirizes pop culture and the art world, Jayson Scott Musson provokes the boundaries that define cultural and racial stereotypes. His most well-known creation is the "art critic" Hennessy Youngman, whose episodic Internet talk show Art Thoughtz has become a viral video phenomenon. In the guise of Hennessy Youngman, Musson uses hip-hop vernacular to critique the exclusionary language of art discourse, hilariously pitting hip-hop and art world idioms against each other in a dual parody of cultural clichés. Engaging hybrid media and contexts, Musson uses platforms such as YouTube to circumvent traditional art institutions and reach a mass audience on his own terms.