MoMA to open a video game exhibit

For years now it seems like i've been seeing discussion on whether video games are art or are they not. I've seen youtube videos, articles, and school reports all discussing whether video games were (or were not) a form of art.

Well, today in an official blog post, the Museum of Modern Art announced that not only do they consider Video Games art, but they're opening a new exhibit in March just for the occasion.

Quote:

---

We are very proud to announce that MoMA has acquired a selection of 14 video games, the seedbed for an initial wish list of about 40 to be acquired in the near future, as well as for a new category of artworks in MoMA’s collection that we hope will grow in the future. This initial group, which we will install for your delight in the Museum’s Philip Johnson Galleries in March 2013, features:

• Pac-Man (1980)
• Tetris (1984)
• Another World (1991)
• Myst (1993)
• SimCity 2000 (1994)
• vib-ribbon (1999)
• The Sims (2000)
• Katamari Damacy (2004)
• EVE Online (2003)
• Dwarf Fortress (2006)
• Portal (2007)
• flOw (2006)
• Passage (2008)
• Canabalt (2009)

Over the next few years, we would like to complete this initial selection with Spacewar! (1962), an assortment of games for the Magnavox Odyssey console (1972), Pong (1972), Snake (originally designed in the 1970s; Nokia phone version dates from 1997), Space Invaders (1978), Asteroids (1979), Zork (1979), Tempest (1981), Donkey Kong (1981), Yars’ Revenge (1982), M.U.L.E. (1983), Core War (1984), Marble Madness (1984), Super Mario Bros. (1985), The Legend of Zelda (1986), NetHack (1987), Street Fighter II (1991), Chrono Trigger (1995), Super Mario 64 (1996), Grim Fandango (1998), Animal Crossing (2001), and Minecraft (2011).

---

This is big news for gaming, because i'm pretty sure that MoMA is the first large institution to acknowledge video games as 'art'. At least, it's the first one that i've heard of.

I hope with this news that it will motivate developers to make their games more unique and innovative than ever before.

They need Ultima Online. It really created the MMO.

That aside, it's awesome. And I love that it thumbs it's nose at a certain critic.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Triaxx

They need Ultima Online. It really created the MMO.

That aside, it's awesome. And I love that it thumbs it's nose at a certain critic.

---

Assuming you're talking about Ebert he later retracted his statement, saying he really didn't understand games enough to have an opinion about them.

This is a good thing, and maybe it'll help more people accept the fact that videogames are art, though their selection is, interesting. I'd have made a few different ones but overall they have a good variety and I'm sure can do some very unique things with the exhibit.

Huh. Dwarf Fortress is on the list? Now there's a coup for a one man project.

Amusingly enough, no RTS/Strategy games made the list.

It's a silly discussion. Games are not art, they are games. In that respect, they are as worthy of being art as yathzee or monopoly.

However, on the front of the monopoly box say, there is a picture. That may be art. In the cut scenes in Warcraft there is concept art - which may be considered art, outside the 'concept' and 'game' envelopes.

But games themselves are not art. The game isn't the art - the game is variations of chance, challenges to our intellect and skill. If Michelangelo painted the sistene chapel roof on the hood of my car - my car wouldn't suddenly be art .... though the picture is.

Basically, I think my argument is this: You can divide the two. The game will remain a game without the art - and the art will remain art without the game. Sure, it's conceivable that the game becomes a better game - the art, better art - through their combination. But still, art is not game, and game is not art.

I disagree. The medium doesn't define the art. To use your example, the art on your car is art whether it's a Mustang or a Yugo.

Just because Video Games aren't the same medium as a canvas, doesn't mean they can't be art. Squiggles on canvas aren't art unless done by a famous artist? BS.

Art is storytelling at it's core, and so are games. That they're interactive art is something else.

---

I'd actually say that Black and White would make an acceptable RTS/Strategy empty.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Triaxx

I disagree. The medium doesn't define the art. To use your example, the art on your car is art whether it's a Mustang or a Yugo.

Just because Video Games aren't the same medium as a canvas, doesn't mean they can't be art. Squiggles on canvas aren't art unless done by a famous artist? BS.

Art is storytelling at it's core, and so are games. That they're interactive art is something else.

---

I'd actually say that Black and White would make an acceptable RTS/Strategy empty.

---

But that's precisely it. A game is a medium. Canvas isn't art, tv isn't art, the car isn't art whether it's a mustang or a yugo. What it presented through the medium may be art - the painting on the canvas, the picture on the car.

Games ... are a medium. Or a mechanic, in the case of non-computer games. But the games themselves cannot ever be art.

They can however, contain works of art. Like the examples I already gave, the cutscenes or music or whatever.

As I said - you can peel the two apart. Art goes in this pile, game goes in the other. No art that was ever in any game needed the game. It's stapled on to improve the game.

It's arguing over definitions, more than anything, I think. Still, that's how I see it =)

A canvas on its own is neither the medium nor the art itself. The medium is the "paint applied to the canvas". An empty canvas isn't art, possibly barring some contemporary artists who do that kind of stuff.

When we're talking about photography, the medium is the photograph as presented to the viewer, not the negative.

When we talk about music, it's the whole that makes it art, not any specific instrument. Music written for a typewriter is still music.


A game is a combination of music, visual stuff and interactivity. If you compare it to theatre, say, Peter Pan... it's got music, it's got the visual stuff, it even has interactivity (the audience has to clap if they believe). The music of the play might be art on its own, but the play itself is also art. The screenplay might be adapted into a book, and that is art, but so is the play itself. And so on.


Heh. Maybe the fact that we keep arguing about this is one more proof that video games are art?

Acromos, did you happen to read the entire blog post? It's not so much the game itself as the design of it. They do say that they consider video games art, but they're putting the focus more on the innovation and creativity put into the game and the code. They aren't picking games just because they're fun or popular. That should be apparent from the inclusion of Dwarf Fortress which (as a fan of dwarf fortress) i find fun, but it's hardly popular compared to say Skyrim.

as far as mentioning games that aren't on the list, it's probably important to note that this is only the lineup for the initial collection. I'm sure in the future they will expand their collection and (hopefully) include the Paragons of each genre.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Tiki Snakes

Huh. Dwarf Fortress is on the list? Now there's a coup for a one man project.

---

I saw that. It's official: fun is art, and art is fun.

RE: games as art. Why not? A "medium" would be the code, the pixels, script, etc., etc. All of which can be their own forms of art, just as, say, a movie combines several different types of art into another. Being a composite art does not, obviously, render it non-art. It's the bringing-together of those elements that makes for the art, because you're leveraging those elements to create a particular experience for the player.

Player choice and AI are merely two more arts which are composited into a game, and neither of those are art-voiding. In fact, I'd say both of those are impressive artistic achievements. Letting players have an explicit ownership in your work (as opposed to a subtle ownership, which is what happens with art by default, I can explain if needed) is a vastly impressive feat, and creating something that will mimic your own intelligence is a vastly underappreciated art.

The "games are a medium" argument doesn't hold, because games are not a loosely-defined sandbox. Most games offer far more direction and restriction than any artistic medium. Someone might call a game like The Sims a "canvas", but in reality, it's not. You have a highly limited (when you sit down and compare the two) scope of influence; maybe you have more influence than in a lot of games, but when you compare it to an actual medium instead, that influence is far lower. You take actions in that game, and the rules of the game (rules which are layered on top of the rules of this world) interact with your actions.

This leads to some at times silly behavior, because that's how the game's designed. You could, however, say something highly profound by means of giving the player particular context and incentives. You could get them to look at humanity in a completely different light, give them that "wait a second, this is what people are like..." moment.

Now that I think of it, art is about discovering something about the world, and then giving other people the necessary context to discover it as well. It's why "art appreciation" consists of education about the symbols and language of various styles of art; the more you learn about a particular piece and the conventions it used, the more developed your context is, and the better you can use that art as a tool to discover things.

Art is discovery. In fact, because art is discovery, games are uniquely suited to provide art of a highly personal nature.

(Also, love that Portal is up there.)

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Triaxx

They need Ultima Online. It really created the MMO.

---

On that note, Planetside would be a good addition.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by endoperez

Heh. Maybe the fact that we keep arguing about this is one more proof that video games are art?

---

Or maybe it's evidence that the entire concept of 'art' as a distinct category is meaningless.

Video games are no more art than a car is.
But Cars are art. A fusion of design and purpose, sculpture in steel, carbon fiber and glass, mass produced and widely available but art non-the-less. You can learn a lot about a culture and an age by examining their cars, both production models, concept cars and individual customized models.

So, yeah. There is that.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Leecros

Acromos, did you happen to read the entire blog post?

---

Good heavens no - I didn't even click the link.

It doesn't really matter, though. My view remains the same: There is art, and channels through which art may reach it's audience. The channel itself isn't art - and the channel may be canvas, stone, wood ... or a game.

Then again, I suppose my definition of what is art is also somewhat controversial. For instance, I very very rarely rate music as art, and most paintings I also consider more craftsmanship than art.

Take the impressionists, for instance. Basically, they all just portray stuff. Most of them, in most works. That I've seen, anyways. The point is that someone invented the technique - which was new, inventive, creative. After that, a bunch of people took it up - basically, worked a craft. Sure they added to it, and so on, but the initial spark of genius was long spent. They were all just along for the ride - which isn't what art is.

Not, at least, to me.

I admit I've yet to convince anyone of this view. I still believe it to be entirely correct, though.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Tiki Snakes

Video games are no more art than a car is.
But Cars are art. A fusion of design and purpose, sculpture in steel, carbon fiber and glass, mass produced and widely available but art non-the-less. You can learn a lot about a culture and an age by examining their cars, both production models, concept cars and individual customized models.

So, yeah. There is that.

---

All the same things are true of spoons, spam or sliderules. Products, by their very nature, are the opposite of art.

Why can't a craftsman be an artist? I can't really make this argument on these forums because a good chunk of artwork that I would half-drunkenly attempt to find to use as an example would either be from the post-roman "dark-ages(bah, that term)" and thus religious or slightly there-after and thus have a very... sexual tone. But! You're definition basically walks up to every art history major and slaps them in the face saying 'NO! That is not art, that is crafts!' When in truth there is little different from an art and a craft. A mechanic, is an artist. Have you every looked at how a car runs? There is beauty to be found in the way the moving parts work. A computer? A work of genius, down to the last capacitor. By what I am understanding your argument as what is 'art' is, limits the term 'artist' to a dozen handful of people. Just because someone did not invent a technique, does not meant they are not artist. Heck, I may argue it is just as hard to find some new way to use an existing technique in a way no one has then it is to create a new one.
The problem of your definition of art and artist isn't that it is 'controversial' but that it limits what art is to pretty much the wheel and the first cave paintings. Everything after that is just building off of what someone else has previously done.
To use your examples; Spoons. Spoons might seem plain and boring, but have you ever looked at one? The shape of the handle, the curve of the mouth, and maybe just maybe the design on the end? All works of art. Yes, most are standardized now, but you can STILL see the loveliness of the initial design and the slight modifications companies and designers make, to make it 'THEIR SPOON'(every see the colour changing spoons in the cereal boxes they used to make? I think for the Lion King? That was awesome.) It might be set in a... Thingy I can't think of right now. I think the word is mold? But it is still art in the creation sense and practicality sense.
Spam... I am biased towards, since I have lived off of, and love canned meat. But someone sat down and said, all right, lets make cheap, easy to transport food that we can get to our troops. And in a Divine moment of inspiration, what did we get? Spam. The delicious awe-inspiring food that has seen plently of people through the week.(And by the way, Spam is expensive, comparatively speaking).
And slide-rules? Seriously? That is nothing BUT art. Have you seen one recently? Those are nothing but slip-slop BAM! You want to multiple by two? Done. You want to divide by five? NO PROBLEM! With a simple slide or two, you are good to go!
I think I have been rambling though. Point is, by dismissing everything that has been worked off of something else as 'not-art' you are arbitrarily dismissing a lot of people and things out of hand, and missing the beauty you could find in what is, as well as saying that every thing but The Woman of Willendorf (how I managed to get that right the first time and it took me five minutes to remember how to spell wheel, I will never know) and Buffalos on a Wall, is not art.

And my disclaimer, I think I have it typed up somewhere but don't feel like copy and pasting it, but its something like 'I forgot to unplug, hard day, beer, yada yada yada, my intention is not to offend, seriously, I couldn't remember what the word for wheel was, yada yada yada.' But I don't want to give the impression that your definition for art is wrong, as the first question and art student, history or uselessly otherwise has to ask is 'What is Art?' and that most any definition is as good as the other, but yours just seems to lack... depth, and to me sounds kind of sad unless you hold a certain reverence for crafts in general. But thats just me.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Acromos

Good heavens no - I didn't even click the link.

It doesn't really matter, though. My view remains the same: There is art, and channels through which art may reach it's audience. The channel itself isn't art - and the channel may be canvas, stone, wood ... or a game.

Then again, I suppose my definition of what is art is also somewhat controversial. For instance, I very very rarely rate music as art, and most paintings I also consider more craftsmanship than art.

Take the impressionists, for instance. Basically, they all just portray stuff. Most of them, in most works. That I've seen, anyways. The point is that someone invented the technique - which was new, inventive, creative. After that, a bunch of people took it up - basically, worked a craft. Sure they added to it, and so on, but the initial spark of genius was long spent. They were all just along for the ride - which isn't what art is.

Not, at least, to me.

I admit I've yet to convince anyone of this view. I still believe it to be entirely correct, though.



All the same things are true of spoons, spam or sliderules. Products, by their very nature, are the opposite of art.

---

I figured you had a pretty limited definition of art, but I'm not sure I've encountered someone before whose definition was so strict they didn't count music or even entire artistic movements as art.
And not just any movement, either, but the Impressionists.

I'm assuming that, on some level, a thing has to be doing something entirely novel, unique and never before done or attempted before to really count as art, as you would define it then? I find this viewpoint intruiging, if rather alien in how strictly you hold to it.

I mean, take as a counterpoint photography. The artist in that case has significantly less room for expression than a painter, his camera captures what is infront of it. But still, he expresses his art form via control of the lighting conditions, exposure, focus, development and most of all via his selection of what to take pictures of in the first place, from what angle at what time of day and so on. It is an endlessly creative field.

The Impressionists, even if you contend that they merely record what is infront of them, have all of the artistic opportunities and controlls that a photographer has and more besides. Through their exploration of the style and ideas contained within impressionism they are able to not only express themselves through what they choose to record, but in how they choose to record it, the precise nature of the marks and their choice of colours and their framing of and composition of the subject and so on and so forth.

There is so much room for expression and variation in this that Monet was able to spend a large amount of time painting the exact same haystacks over and over and end up with a whole serious of fascinatingly different works of art, that taken as a whole manage to depict not so much a pile of slowly decaying hay, but the light, the air, the weather and the slowly changing season.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Paul Cezanne

Monet is only an eye, but my God, what an eye.

---

It's worth noting, far as I understand, it was actually a whole collective of artists working together, bouncing ideas of each other and so on who originated the whole impressionist style/movement, rather than one man with a spark of genius.
It's also worth remembering just how wildly, violently radical it was at the time.

I've always considered video games as a medium capable of being art. Not all games are, of course, but the same could be said of any other medium. Some movies are garbage and if I scribble a few paint lines on a canvas, it doesn't make it a work of art (It takes a whole 'nother level of pretentiousness for that! *zing*)

More on topic though, what would you consider the most important aspect of a work of art? Maybe you think differently, but to me, the single most important aspect of a work of art is the ability to inspire emotion. Video games are the medium with the most potential to do this. No other medium is as interative as a video game and no other medium can draw the viewer - player in this case - into it like a video game can. Done well, the emotions inspired by video games can be far more personal. Far more powerful. And this is because as the player rather than as just a passive oberserver, you are playing an active role.

Maybe the extent of the emotional impact is frustration or rage at a difficult section. Joy of accomplishment or anticipation of something to come. However, those are fairly shallow and easy to come by. Most games pull that sort of thing off without much effort. Consider instead the sort of game with a deep plot and interesting characters. The sort that draws you into the world and makes you empathize with the protagonists. Makes you feel their joy and experience their sorrow (For me, the first one to come to mind is always Final Fantasy VI). That is true art. Anyone who questions the validity of video games as art, I ask you how is that any less valid than a novel or film that does the same?

Tono nailed it, and I also think that anyone who thinks Impressionism isn't art clearly hasn't seen the Doctor Who episode "Vincent and the Doctor". The Impressionists were artists precisely because they only painted their impressions of a scene. No two people will ever form the same impression of a scene, and showing the whole world your own impression of it is art indeed.

Not every art has to have a message baked into it. In fact, those which do tend to be inferior art.

If the defining feature of art is it's ability to inspire emotion though, then given the subjective nature of art, a single piece could both be and not be art at the same time, entirely depending on who is viewing it.

Which is just confusing.

It seems to me that a lot of people like to reserve the label art for things that are also good. I'm not sure I agree with that, it seems a difficult definition. I prefer to allow conceptual space for bad art to exist, too.

As for games specifically, I believe that storytelling is art. Music is art. Painting is art. Sculpture is art. Animation is art. providing interesting, thought provoking enviroments, like a lot of performance art or installation style art is, more or less an art form too, (albeit a slightly wishy washy form of art).

So with this in mind, I don't see how a fusion of all of those things can be anything other than art.

I consider something art if it's meant to make you feel a certain emotion. How good it is as an art thus being based on how many people it actually inspires the correct emotions in, like something funny actually being funny instead of just offputting or boring.

So games CAN be art but not all games are art. ET on Atari? Not art.

Skyrim? Visually appealing and the setting could be considered an art piece but the game itself lacks any emotional depth so not art to me, just overly pretty for no reason.

Mother 3, art, and good art at that.

I personally really dislike how the "Games as art" debate always focuses on the presentation or the story rather than the gameplay, which is more art in the same sense as an orchestral score or a good painting in that it is the exquisite design for its purpose that makes it true art.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by tbok1992

I personally really dislike how the "Games as art" debate always focuses on the presentation or the story rather than the gameplay, which is more art in the same sense as an orchestral score or a good painting in that it is the exquisite design for its purpose that makes it true art.

---

The game play of Batman AA is meant to evoke feelings of "Holy crap I beat the crap out of a bunch of thugs, I AM Batman."

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by endoperez

A canvas on its own is neither the medium nor the art itself. The medium is the "paint applied to the canvas". An empty canvas isn't art, possibly barring some contemporary artists who do that kind of stuff.

When we're talking about photography, the medium is the photograph as presented to the viewer, not the negative.

When we talk about music, it's the whole that makes it art, not any specific instrument. Music written for a typewriter is still music.


A game is a combination of music, visual stuff and interactivity. If you compare it to theatre, say, Peter Pan... it's got music, it's got the visual stuff, it even has interactivity (the audience has to clap if they believe). The music of the play might be art on its own, but the play itself is also art. The screenplay might be adapted into a book, and that is art, but so is the play itself. And so on.


Heh. Maybe the fact that we keep arguing about this is one more proof that video games are art?

---

That's like saying that a movie can't be art because it's just a sequence of pictures all lined up.

Dwarf Fortress is a perfect example of why games can be art. It has no pretty pictures, no great sound, nothing artistic about it at all...except for what happens when you start to play it.

Art is something designed to evoke a reaction in the user. A well-designed game does that, not because of it's impressive visuals (though that can help), or it's proficient voice actors and great music (again, can help), but simply through the interaction of it's rules and the player's psyche. Even further, a truly great game pulls together all of it's parts: rules, design, art, sound, interface, controls, story, everything, and turns it into a work of art that can't be seen by looking at any of it's component pieces.

For example, look at Portal. Take one piece of it's making, the sound, the visuals, or the portal mechanic, and you'll have something that's nice, but nothing spectacular. Put them together, though, and you get something far greater.


In addition, I'd like to say that all games are art, not just the ones people like. That's not to say that all games are good art, but even a ****ty painting is still art. Just, really ****ty art.

Art is something experienced. Video games are experienced. Video games are art.

Art is something that is defined differently for each person. It is a subjective and opinion based term. Technically, everything is art, but that is such a broad definition that the word might as well not exist.

Many people debate the difference between craft and art, and an often mutual agreement is that art is meant to evoke or express something, while craft is made for utility. There are a few inherent problems with that though.

One, something can be labeled with one of these terms by the creator's intent AND the user's intent separately. A spoon might be a craft for someone mass-producing them, but when used to create a display piece for a table, it may be art. An artist could carefully create an intricately shaped and personalized spoon, and the buyer could use it to eat cereal.

Two, there is such a thing as the art of the craft. The subtleties and personal distinctions a craftsman makes to ply their trade is as much of an art form as painting. A good cook is an artist, even when working at a normal restaurant.

Three, something can be both craft and art at the same time, defined as both by the same person. There's no reason that the man with the intricately crafted spoon can't take time to reflect and ponder over the spoon in his hand while he eats his cereal. For that matter, there's no reason someone can't appreciate the curves and design, the different levels of plating on a regular spoon while eating cereal.

I don't know that I could give my definition of art, it's more of how I'm looking at anything at any given moment. If something is intended to elicit emotional responses or thoughtfulness then it is probably art. Even if it isn't intended to do so, it can still be art, but it is then defined by how it is used/viewed.

Yes, video games are a medium. It is precisely because they are a medium that individual games can be art. That's like saying music isn't art, it's a medium, but an individual song or performance can be art.

In that sense, video games can definitely be art. Interactive art also is inherently more engaging, so video games can really create amazing personal reactions. Just my two cents.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by AgentPaper

That's like saying that a movie can't be art because it's just a sequence of pictures all lined up.

---

I was actually saying that a movie is art, and every single picture in it can also be art.

Games can be art. Game music, graphics, story etc can also be art.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Triaxx

Art is something experienced. Video games are experienced. Video games are art.

---

This doesn't fly with me. Which means it's a striped rhubarb. Since, you know, striped rhubarbs don't fly.

I for one would have included Diablo 2, Warcraft 3, Half-Life 2 and a few others on their wishlist, but that's probably just me.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Acromos

Basically, I think my argument is this: You can divide the two. The game will remain a game without the art - and the art will remain art without the game. Sure, it's conceivable that the game becomes a better game - the art, better art - through their combination. But still, art is not game, and game is not art.

---

The problem with that attitude is that the art of a game is not static; it is in motion. A great example is Myst, very definitely one of the most "art-ish" of the selections. First you have beautiful visual panoramas; second you have fine music (Channelwood and the Mechanical Age still haunt me to this day); third you have sound effects (Selenitic in particular is filled with interesting environmental noises), and fourth you have a story. But the art isn't just these individual components, but also the way they interweave to create an experience. Grinding for levels on Diablo 2, okay that's not really art. But being able to walk through a story and shape the way it unfolds, within an absurdly wide array of parameters set up in an intentionally open-ended way by the designer, ideally so that no two players experience the game the same way twice - I say that the person who creates such a thing is very much an artist.

There is no doubt my view of art is highly subjective - and that few will have a matching opinion of it. I think that's what makes it ... well, 'right'. In so far as any view of art can be that.

Let me try to put it this way: There can never be a definition of art that is true for everyone - except if that definition is: Art is what you, individually, perceive to be so.

As an aside, I want to point out that in my view, craft is in no way less than art. I have as much respect for a master craftsman as I do for a master artist.

I define art as something that manages to WOW me. Something that, for a moment, completely wipes my mind. This is very rarely achieved - and as far as the impressionists are concerned, never was. I accept impressionism as art by proxy - I recognize it as a very refined craft, and I realise that at one point, it was entirely novel and WOW-capable. It's the same for all schools, by the way: If you just go along with something someone else thought up - you may be an artist, but chances are you're a craftman.

On Myst: I don't consider Myst to be art at all. It's a pretty game, but it's really just story-telling combined with a few puzzles. I enjoyed it, spent hours on it, but I'd never consider it art.

On photography: Photography can be one of two things - either technical skill, or eye for motive. The one is so very, very clearly a craft. The other, the eye for motive, is esoteric enough that I'll consider it art, at the very edges of the envelope: Most photography is craft, but a rare few protographers are artist.

I feel the same way about painters, of course.

Tiki snakes: My definition of art isn't limited - it's narrow. I'm picky. Art is rare, it's not some sort of alchemical compound that God sprinkled generously upon all of creation. Art is art because it is hard to create, rare and special. Nothing that has become a school can ever fit that definition.

Tono: A craftsman can be an artist. Only in almost all cases, he isn't. A carpenters products will almost always be either simple, plentiful or common - most likely all three. The finest carpenter in all the lands of men might create something that is both difficult, rare and special. But most likely he doesn't.

To all of the above, please mentally add 'in my opinion'. I make no claims that my views on art more ... 'right' than anyone elses.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Acromos

There is no doubt my view of art is highly subjective - and that few will have a matching opinion of it. I think that's what makes it ... well, 'right'. In so far as any view of art can be that.

Let me try to put it this way: There can never be a definition of art that is true for everyone - except if that definition is: Art is what you, individually, perceive to be so.

SNIP

To all of the above, please mentally add 'in my opinion'. I make no claims that my views on art more ... 'right' than anyone elses.

---

Before these last sentences, I interpreted your post(s) like this: defining art subjectively is the only right way.

I'm not going to argue against your opinion and definition on art - it's different from the norm, but there's nothing wrong or harmful in that. It's an opinion, it's different, that doesn't mean it's somehow wrong.


However, you should REALLY be more considerate of other people. When you're making claims based on your opinions, and they differ this drastically from the accepted norm, you should START with what you ended this post with.

You should have told us, in your first post, that your definition or art is different from the norm. You shouldn't have told us that it's a silly discussion, because it's only your definition that makes it silly.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by endoperez

However, you should REALLY be more considerate of other people. When you're making claims based on your opinions, and they differ this drastically from the accepted norm, you should START with what you ended this post with.

You should have told us, in your first post, that your definition or art is different from the norm. You shouldn't have told us that it's a silly discussion, because it's only your definition that makes it silly.

---

Really?

In a discussion whose topic is entirely subjective, in which everything can only ever be opinion because there is no scale to measure what art is or isn't, I should specifically point out that my views are unconventional?

And I should do this, specifically, because not agreeing with others on this hazy, nebulous topic may hurt their feelings?

I have absolutely no intention of hurting anyone with anything I say (or write, in this case). But if anyone is so fragile their feelings are hurt simply because some random stranger on the internet views a topic as undefinable as art differently than they do - I'm pretty sure I'm not the one with the problem.

But thanks for pointing out to me that my definition is silly. In the same post you accuse me of being insensitive and hurting other's feelings.