The popularity of video games shows no sign of waning, and museums have ramped up their interest in the medium. [...]
“Sorry MoMA, video games are not art” was the headline on Jonathan Jones’s blog [...] after New York’s Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) announced the acquisition of 14 video games, including 1980s classics “Tetris” and “Pac-Man”. “All hell broke loose in an interesting way,” said Paola Antonelli, a senior curator in the museum’s department of architecture and design [...].
— theartnewspaper.com
67 Comments
Yes. Next question.
If you see art as offering something different than the popular marketplace, no. There's a difference between a critical take on video games and just turning museums into arcades.
Today MoMA is outsourcing arch curation to Instagram now, and selling t-shirts at Uniqlo just in case you thought there was a difference between marketing and curation in 2015. I don't think this view is the only one though
It's nice that people can go to a world class museum and do the exact same thing they can at home at their Xbox. Between this and the Instagram thing, museums seem eager to write their own obituaries.
I'm with Evan.
"Yes. Next question."
Its kind of an old question.
Im somewhere between who cares and why not.
it's interesting that pac-man is in the picture. there is art in video games, without a doubt. however, pac man (and many older games) were focused on gameplay more than the art.
it's like, would you consider chess a work of art? not really. is a chess board a work of art? probably not. but some chess pieces could certainly be considered works of art.
tetris, on the other hand, could lean towards a work of art, not only in the sculptural design of the blocks when assembled, but in the performance of dropping the blocks.
pacman is defidently form following function.
yes. So are movies. They don't usually show narrative movies in a fine arts museum either though. It seems inconsistent to include video games but exclude films.
Though one could certainly curate an exhibit on the graphics of certain specific video games. I think it would be interesting to view some of the classic nintendo games (SMB 2-3, Metroid) in a comparison to traditional japanese landscape art.
On the whole video games just don't seem fit into the narrative of contemporary art - it's not their intent or their role in life. There should be a place for them, but it's hard to see that as being the typical art museum.
Reflecting on this a bit more I guess the question isn't whether they are art, but how to place them within the world of art.
As a genre video games have very little in common with most of what art museums today curate - games (for the most part) aren't the vision of individual creators. Nor are they sold and exhibited as collector items. Nor are they even created with the intent of being exhibited.
Video games, like movies (the cinematic type, not art-films) or TV shows are collaborative works experienced through a kind of narrative process. It would make more sense (and be more interesting) to exhibit games in tandem with other interactive narratives - like game shows maybe.
My concern about games being exhibited by art museums as it stands now is that the curators aren't really getting into the content of the game. Instead, they are dissecting them (ala Cory Arcangel) and in the process killing the spirit that motivated their development.
It seems very strange to place them within a museums design + architecture department as noted in the article. They aren't essentially design products - design (in this context) being the use of art to improve a functional product / building. Video games don't aim to fulfill any material function.
So to me the problem raised isn't that museums are viewing video games as art - but that they really don't have a good paradigm for viewing games critically. They simply don't operate in the same expressive mode as either exhibit-type art (paintings, installations) or functional Design (architecture, furniture, graphic design). They're a narrative media, and belong in a place where they can be appreciated as such.
Museum tour guide: Now we're moving from our collection of impressionist paintings to the video game gallery featuring Pac Man and Donkey Kong. You will notice that both explore ideas using pixelation ...
The other question that comes up is what purpose museums see in collecting video games. The original notion of the museum being to collect and exhibit one-off or rare pieces that would otherwise be unseen by the public.
That distinction has become somewhat blurrier with the development of media like photography that are inherently reproducible - but still, museums have focused on the kinds of photography seen as collector's items: art photography. And that's a world where limited editions remain the norm, and collections focus on art-world insiders. Museums don't collect or exhibit stock photos, or kitten calenders.
I could accept an argument that obsolescence means many video games will go unplayed by the future public - though emulators online (illegally) present a good workaround on that. But museums are more than a media library - in fact the proper term for a media library is just 'library'.
What distinguishes a museum from a library is the act of curation, of trying to find the artistic value in a work. While an interactive exhibit might be suitable for a simple game like Pac-Man, there are far more games that really need an investment of time and learning to be experienced. Think Myst or Legend of Zelda. That just can't happen in a museum.
And there are a huge number of games - maybe the majority - which are chiefly competitive games. Like curtkram pointed out, games aren't actually seen as an art form. No one goes to a museum to play chess, or watch replays of past Super Bowls.
The expression of the game - the graphics, the music - those can be studied in a museum setting. But I don't think the essence of gaming fits in a museum. It's an experience for players, not viewers.
So I guess the museums are trying to get ahead of this realm before it "video games" as a cultural form gets appropriated by other research institutions. I think they're going about it wrong by focusing on them as public performances though. Video games aren't performance art, and the value of the form is totally misunderstood by seeing them that way.
^ Miles made my point more succinctly, as always ;)
What the museums are doing is likely to lead to a stupid misreading of games.
The purpose is clear. The way things are going pretty soon we'll see a museum of fine art displaying corporate banking agreements, contracts, credit default swaps, etc. The exhibition will be called The Art of the Deal (or steal if you like).
As for me, I prefer the good old days when art was art.
actually think its a step up from the urinal
Wait - no Missile Command? One of the all time best examples of mechanics as metaphor doesn't get a spot?
Do you get to sue the museum for compensation when NCAA games are displayed? (NCAA athletes are unpaid for being used in games)
I think they should have an evolution of the depiction of Gotham city exhibit. There are batman video games, so they would be included.
DOOM and Wolfenstein get their own wing
^ in a labyrinth layout that simulates the big-pixel 2D environment.
Paramedics will be on duty for those experiencing epileptic seizures.
anyone experiencing epileptic seizures will be pwned by the campers. l2p noob.
At least the urinal was a critical piece. Video games require an entire museum of interaction... The MoMA exhibitions are embarrassing and only seem to love a certain kind of video game: the 2D, extremely boring games.
This just seems like a curatorial cry for help... Or a resume to Silicon Valley
^ya does seem like they are being stylistically selective. a sort of retro collectors fetish almost
If it doesn't run on a Commodore 64 it isn't art.
Next at the MoMA: the design and art of MINIONS! Perfectly fits the lucrative 6-14 demographic! Cue the angry "is it art" thinkpieces and the curator rebuttals! These old hats are so out of touch!
The "yes, next questions" response seems to be one employed by the MoMA itself. That in itself should tell you a lot about the unwillingness of the MoMA to engage in sincere debate (sound familiar?). I think there might be a way to do this: focus on a single video game designer, or a single movement, perhaps, would strengthen the case. The selection looks like it was decided by my Mom, but that would be an insult to her, because she knows much more about video games. You'd think that an instution spending billions on real estate development could afford a few low-paid researchers or curators who knew a little about their subject matter.
The MoMA's idea seems to be, here's some video games, aren't we so hip, please let this be controversial. A "game' is by nature a form of amusement--it doesn't mean that a video game can't rise beyond that, but your critical game has to be a step above if you want to play this one. And the race of other museums to jump on the video game bandwagon is just amusing in itself. Like, art, is so BORING, right? But what is the quality of that message about life? I just don't get that in Pac Man as I do in a Monet. I do love video games, but there is something existentially escapist and anti-sensual about them. Maybe VR will be better.
I don't think the multi-billion dollar video game industry was ever asking or seeking credibility from art institutions. But whenever you have money, you will have critical authorities trying to form a connection to that industry. The question is why does a fine art institution need to be 'hip'... what about being right? Don't we need to build more institutions, rather than this idea that painting and craft are "old" and video games are "now"... (er, like 30 years ago). At least the modernists were ahead of their time.
I guess in the post-Jay-Z world, Kanye gets to decide the album of the year, and cultural authority is decided by the most popular rather than best--usual death of culture type thing here. But modern life is starting to look more like a video game than a reality.
"unwillingness of the MoMA to engage in sincere debate (sound familiar?)"
Is this about the MoMA brand and grievances/disillusionment tied to it? Or is this about video games as art?
Well, maybe the curators/marketers would see the resulting debate as proof of their being right.... as if the size of the debate validates the idea. This seems to be the currency of the digital age, so it's not out of line with that. I just think it's interesting how the digital world seems to focus on amusement while architecture is about ethical issues of context and reality. This seems to be an important distinction.
Either way, i don't think the ideas imbedded in art/design/curation are ever fully separate from their contexts, and MoMA is no different.
My (sound familiar) was more of an aside, though form does sometimes follow function.
That said, video games are still more enjoyable than most contemporary art.
how about the art of 'memes,' like grumpy cat? grumpy cat is art, and he's more critical and entertaining than a urinal or a can of poop.
Cat memes are so late-2014 as are "gif-art"
Well if you prefer a video game and cat meme over a Monet or Fallingwater, be my guest. You'll enjoy a few moments of amusement while I have a lifetime of amazement. I mean, even if you love video games, how long do you play even the best ones? A few weeks? (Dota nonwithstanding)
Even the most clever cat memes are forgotten in a day. As are most blog posts, including this one.
but we're not comparing this to monet because he's dead. that is a health problem that will prevent him from creating new works of art in the future or the present. we're not comparing this to fallingwater because it doesn't fit in a museum or art gallery.
we're comparing this to newer works of art being shown in galleries, which include a can of poop, as posted by miles on Feb 9, 15 10:15 pm, and a urinal, as posted by jla at Feb 9, 15 11:21 pm.
hopefully you're back on track of the current thread, rather than revisiting artwork that is already displayed in galleries, and is over 100 years old. it's nice to visit the past, and there is no doubt that great works of art and science and math and everything else came from the past, but we can't live there. not that there is anything wrong with stylistically recreating the great things that monet has done, but apparently art galleries think they need something else, as what monet did has already been done. something in the world changed, and it seems this article comes from an attempt to reflect that change in a more honest way than recreating an idyllic reference to the past.
painting in general doesn't really represent the way we display or record information the way it did 150 years ago. a lot has changed, so what monet did in the context of the 19th century doesn't really fit in with what we do in the 21st century. the way he approached his art then is just different from the way art should be approached now, because the way stuff is done, with regards to art, math, science, and everything else, is different now. of course banksy may be a good example of how that isn't entirely true, but then he also approaches art from a different perspective than monet did.
or, perhaps your example of monet being displayed is a statement to say we should quit trying new things like displaying poop, urinals, video games, and cat memes in galleries. what monet did is simply better than what passes for art today, and we should quit trying to do something new until we can make something better, with reference to the perspective that we look at the past in hindsight. that's fine. there are art galleries that display monet's work, and there will continue to be galleries that display monet's work. this gallery, however, appears to be trying to find something newer.
sometimes i hate the real world too and pretend i'm living in fantasy world with swords and magic where i can foos-roh-dah my way to herodom. of course i can get that from video games rather than viewing 150 year old works of art, which is what's on display here, so maybe there is a pretty direct tie in to what you're looking for here.
of course your statement "Cat memes are so late-2014 as are "gif-art" might be too true, and the gallery in question should be equipped to rotate in new forms of expression at a faster pace, since impermanence may be an integral part of the art, as is the case with tibetan sand paintings.
that was a long wall of text.
tl'dr: this isn't monet or fallingwater.
I agree that Monet and FLW are dead, but I feel more in the present and alive when I look at their work than I do playing pac-man. Sorry. And the point of this thread is the value of placing video games in a fine art museum, which invites these comparisons. Even if you did create an entire museum of video game art and design, people would still go to the Met or MoMA to see the old paintings.... why? Because of the values imbedded in the works... even the Modern architecture of the 1920s-60s was more painterly than today, and therefore more liked by the public. You can play video games anywhere, there's nothing special or uplifting about this experience besides hipster nostalgia or the excersize in curatorial contrast and irony. Like that cat photos, or urinals, the point in displaying video games seems to be an excercize in novelty rather than a substainative debate about life. . . . .
I'm just not hearing a compelling criticism here. It sounds like knee jerk reactions and MoMA-bashing from casual art observers.
There is so much video game related art happening now that its impossible for institutions to ignore it. And they haven't ignored it. Its been in many major museums already. Like I said, its nothing new.
lightperson, i agree that historic works of art continue to hold a captivating sense of sorts, and many have earned their places in fine museums across the world. that's a good thing, and those works of art should continue to be accessible to the public as they are now for the reasons you've given, and probably many other very good reasons.
i believe they placed video games in an art museum because they are viewing the video games as works of art. they want them to be thought of as something other than just entertainment or as something with that embedded value you're looking for. it doesn't replace the older works of art you like, it adds another avenue to experience art.
i don't think moma is doing this for entertainment or shock value. i think they're looking for how artists express themselves. when monet was painting, he wasn't just focusing on the flowers. he had an understanding of the oil paints and canvas, the limits of the size of the canvas, and used that as a medium to tell his story. the video game industry has a lot of development with people working on tools that display shade and shadow and light and texture, the same sort of things monet worked with. instead of oils and canvas, now people have screens and pixels.
it's good to have artistic people develop those tools too. it's wrong to say we should be developing oil paint and canvas because monet did it right. it seems to me that moma's intent is to say we need to develop these modern tools to create new and better works of art, though i would also say they may have picked the wrong games if that's the goal.
the can of poop and urinal were more of 'object as art' or 'art making a statement' or something like that. i believe grumpy cat is more capable of making a profound statement than displaying a urinal as art. perhaps that's just because i don't understand the artist.
Perhaps you could enlighten us to a compelling reason that video games are art, beyond the usual 'it's what's happening now' novelty everybody's doing it criteria. The 'knee-jerk' reactions is your own simplistic notion of what is going on here. It's sort of a marketing tool used to appear progressive... look at these old-hat painterly types! they don't think this is art! Well if you want to talk video games, talk video games... and we can see what ideas they represent. But I don't see much beyond empty provication and marketing to a youth demographic.
As a fan of video games, I don't think that the criteria of the MoMA is coherant. Is it MoMA bashing? You can't ignore MoMA's recent Starbucksification when looking into their choices. Like I said, there are ways of doing this that would lead me to think there is real artistry here. But the way its presented is out of novelty and hipster techno-fetishism.
One useful definition of art is the ideas that it represents. But there's no human ideas in the choices. It's just here's a bunch of cool video games, come play them. I've been talking about ideas, but video game as art enthsiasts don't really engage on these grounds> I've proposed better ways to treat video games as art by actually examining the ideas that they show. What ideas does Myst show us? Most museum quality art is judged on both aethetic and substainative grounds... the MoMA here just arbitrarily picked a bunch based on a certain 2D retro aesthetic.
One more thing, MoMA has already declared that there is no difference between design and art. Now... that maybe one important criteria. You may think there is a difference between a film and a commercial, but MoMA doesn't.
Now get off my lawn!
I'm not the best person to educate you on the subject of video game art. l suggest looking up "video game art" and reading what has been written on the subject by experts on the subject. Cory Arcangel, an important artist in that genre, had a solo show at the Whitney in 2011. You can look up reviews of that show (http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2011/05/30/futurism) and use that to do further research. Also look up the artist Jon Rafman, another person working with video games. http://dismagazine.com/dystopia/49510/a-man-digging/
I'm not sure why Pacman specifically was chosen. One thought is that its a revisiting of the history of video games now that it has become an art form. Sort of like collecting ubiquitous objects that predate our contemporary view of the designer.
light, i agree with you that if video games are to be discussed as art, then they should be discussed in a similar manner as art, whether it's mona lisa's smile or duke nukem's smile. moma may not be going about it right, but that doesn't make the conversation irrelevant does it? it's a new conversation to have, and moma is trying to get it started. perhaps the conversation has a ways to go before it evolves into something more mature, or perhaps it's just the critics who have to grow into the conversation.
i don't actually understand what you're talking about with regards to 'ideas.' what 'idea' is in monet's water lillies? what idea is in hokusai's wave off kanagawa? if you see ideas in those paintings, why not look for ideas in myst as well?
i don't think i've ever played myst, so maybe their art direction just sucks. i tell you what though, the art direction in clone wars was a hell of a lot better than rebels. if i were to say why, i would guess it's because they used somewhat darker shadows to suggest more depth. perhaps you could say an exaggerated ambient occlusion or dirt map. i think it gave them more expressive and emotive characters. sort of like mona lisa's smile.
The "idea" behind Monet water lilies is how a light and hand painting from first person experience can make you feel that same an emotional experience of the world. Think how the use of the hand can change an architects drawings, and then the quality of the buikdings they design. Many times they become more "solid" and weighted. Wheres design through a computer many times leads to a different kind of work, based on the properties of that medium.
There are specific ideas and philosophical concepts that come out of each individual game. But MoMA isn't starting the conversation about them -- that's is false advertising.,.. That convo been happening for 30 years. They way it's presented is more nostalgic, with The implication that video games are just today's version of Monet. If they are, that case has not been made. By the same token, the poop can isn't todays version of Picasso or even the Duschamp because it is in a different context and has different response....
What's worse, and most bothersome is that I probably could make the case for video games better than the MoMA but they don't even care to do so. It's just the same "yes, next question" that started this. Ok, do what you want I guess. You can see how the performance art aspect of video games and this whole kind of "watching people watch people play games" leads directly to things that we make fun of, like the Art Bay. It's all there.
Its up to artists to make the case for the use of a medium or technology through the work. Artists don't need MoMA's permission.
Again, video games as art is an already established thing. Thats why "yes, next question". Its old news. The MoMA is just catching up. MoMA doesn't need to make the case for an established medium, it just needs to educate the public about it.
Why does a museum need to educate the public about a popular medium that everyone is familiar with, that is old news? Why take space away from lesser known works that you can't access everywhere else? Just seems awkward in the museum format....
The work of artists and the activities of subcultures has changed and is changing the context around the history of video games.
Pac-man, like Thonet chair no. 14, is popular. That doesn't mean that its influence, design and logic is as popularly known/understood.
When I say "video game as art" is established, I mean its established in the art world. The broader public probably isn't aware of that.
"Why take space away from lesser known works"
I don't know if thats actually happening.
Both the Thonet chair and Pac Man are massed produced consumer products.
Andy Warhol notwithstanding, that precludes them from being art.
MoMA has made a fortune in blurring the line between art and consumer products (a+cp=design?), so you can understand why they would continue this. The Bauhaus, the prototype for the design department of the MoMA, was much clearer in its goal of using modernism as a tool to bring art to the masses. But modernism itself was perverted by a million hucksters who used it as an excuse to cut corners, strip the craft away, and seek the lowest common denominator, and make it rain. Not that there is anything wrong with making $$, but the more you get, the harder it is to maintain your artistry--probably because every business as it scales loses the on the ground vision of its founder and humanism.
Which brings us back to the tricky subject of design in general, and video games in particular. The motivations of MoMA are clearly dubious--video games do not need advertisement, they are already in the hands of anybody who wants them. And if their goal is to explore the artisty that they obviously have, they have failed at that. They obviously see digital technology the way that the hucksters saw modernism--as a trendy gimmick to exploit and profit from.
When you see this, as well as the instagram collaboration, it reminds me that MoMA, and the popular design intelligencia, don't really have any real ideas about design. It's about exploiting digital technology in amusing ways that don't really care about content or the real world. When museums start showing cat photos, I will not be surprised--catering to the lowest common denominator.
Perhaps a good model to look at is the Cooper-Hewitt's recent design curation work--there is a much better example of how to explain consumer objects using diagrams and how craft and art intersect with design. Much better at explaining the process of design....
Lightperson,
Artists are the ones blurring the line between art and mass culture. Artists are blurring every line. I don't see how an institution can really ignore it. I don't see how to neatly separate "consumer products" from "design objects" from "media" from "art". And when the same people are creating art, architecture, objects, ad campaigns, clothing, books and music, I don't see any clear lines. Any line imposed on to a multidisciplinary practice is going to seem contrived and probably hostile.
I'm not very convinced by the charge that popularizing and dispersing art culture is a strategy of the monocled "intelligencia [sic]". I think the opposite is actually true. The painters and sculptors who create very large and rare pieces out of luxurious materials for the elite to purchase, is the agenda that needs to be subverted.
We can all own this jpg:
Very few of us can own this art object:
I don't envy the curators who have to decide what the MoMA considers "important" "profound" art or how genres and categories should be separated and labeled.
Art is not design, and design is not art.
The MOMA design store doesn't sell art. The Cooper Hewitt is not an art museum. Owning a poster of the Mona Lisa doesn't make you an art collector.
Although when a good plumber or mechanic is considered to be an artist, it is easy to understand why some are easily confused.
"Art is not design, and design is not art."
There is a difference between design and art but it has been undermined over and over again throughout history.
Paola Antonelli explained the decision to purchase Pac-man along with many other things in a TED talk: https://www.ted.com/talks/paola_antonelli_why_i_brought_pacman_to_moma?language=en#t-349934
Jon Maeda chimed in http://www.wired.com/2012/12/why-videogames-do-belong-in-the-museum-of-modern-art/
"Are these games art? Well, it’s important to note they were acquired as examples of “design” — not “art” — and as Wired readers may know, I believe there’s a difference. So I think Jonathon Jones misses that point when he decries MoMA’s actions because art has to be an “act of personal imagination.”
Videogames are indeed design: They’re sophisticated virtual machines that echo the mechanical systems inside cars. Would anyone question a Ferrari or Model T or even a VW bug being acquired by MoMA?"
"I would argue that in some cases, games edge past being design to being art as well. Because unlike the mechanical function of a car, a narrative replaces the act of physically getting you from point A to point B. A narrative that you, the player, gets to drive and live through until it’s game over. This is where videogames become an art-like act of “personal imagination”"
Yes you can argue all day about what is art and design. Obviously there are elements of art in design and in video games. Video games are a part of interaction design. However, why is it that video games were excluded, as were things like firearms, sex toys, etc. Perhaps because the mission of museums is to educate, or be optimistic of the future, or offer something different than the local Toys R Us or children's museum.
It's an interesting conversation, yes, but all hell didn't break out. It was actually an extremely banal choice because it didn't surprise. There is nothing new here other than what it says about the museum itself. Being contrarian doesn't make it right... Perhaps they needed a better idea of what they were saying.
Maeda is a Silicon Valley venture guru now, btw.
#millenialmarketing101
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