Web vs Gallery: A Battle for the Future!
I was just reading an article about currating new media art. In the article they are mostly refering to showing new media art in museums and galleries. This is an issue becuase the art is not really made with the intent of being displayed in a given room or wall. They talk about how maybe new media art needs to be in a different context, like clubs, community centers, or even on the streets.
This concept of moving art out of the galleries isn't a new one, most new movements in art involve a rejection of the formal trappings of art and art culture... but this was a discussion between the people who run the galleries and museum currators about how they should approach showing new media art in the future.
you may be asking yourself, what this has to do with web-based art (or maybe you're not.) but it really does. web based art is a sub-genre of new media art, the web is a new medium for art. and web-based art can possibly be one of the more dificult forms to show in a gallery or museum, unless the museum has a computer on display for people to use to look at the art. And even so, should the webpages and programs be displayed by projector on a large screen, or should they be left on the computer screen where they were origionally intended to be seen?
The worst case scenario would be that years later, museums still have no web art displays, and a whole movement in art is lost to the ages. But i doubt that would happen. Maybe with the coming of the electronic age and the growth of the internet museums will become old news, and online galleries will become more prevelant.
But even today it is a mixed message. Artists are often expected to have website portfolios, but those are not equivelant to being shown in a gallery. Traditional artists get credibility from showing in galleries, as well as giving people the experience of their paintings or photographs or sculptures in person. the web site only acts as a reference.
web based art does not have this option. there is only the web version, and since there is nothing to be shown in a gallery it seems that in the academic world, web art is not taken as seriously.
This concept of moving art out of the galleries isn't a new one, most new movements in art involve a rejection of the formal trappings of art and art culture... but this was a discussion between the people who run the galleries and museum currators about how they should approach showing new media art in the future.
you may be asking yourself, what this has to do with web-based art (or maybe you're not.) but it really does. web based art is a sub-genre of new media art, the web is a new medium for art. and web-based art can possibly be one of the more dificult forms to show in a gallery or museum, unless the museum has a computer on display for people to use to look at the art. And even so, should the webpages and programs be displayed by projector on a large screen, or should they be left on the computer screen where they were origionally intended to be seen?
The worst case scenario would be that years later, museums still have no web art displays, and a whole movement in art is lost to the ages. But i doubt that would happen. Maybe with the coming of the electronic age and the growth of the internet museums will become old news, and online galleries will become more prevelant.
But even today it is a mixed message. Artists are often expected to have website portfolios, but those are not equivelant to being shown in a gallery. Traditional artists get credibility from showing in galleries, as well as giving people the experience of their paintings or photographs or sculptures in person. the web site only acts as a reference.
web based art does not have this option. there is only the web version, and since there is nothing to be shown in a gallery it seems that in the academic world, web art is not taken as seriously.
posted by eygji at 2:39 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home