Reasoned Consideration

Who would have thought, modern/contemporary art training institutions are having some difficulty explaining why they are relevant : "What's the point of art school? ... As changes to the school curriculum and university funding undermine the arts education system, industry experts gather at Central Saint Martin's art school to discuss what the future holds for arts students ... Catastrophic cuts to funding, a drop in applications to university arts courses and the exclusion of the creative arts from the new EBacc performance measure mean now is a difficult time for the arts sector" And yet I think the examples on the article page speak for themselves (and note, contrary to what you might think, these were posted in defense of contemporary art education, with not a trace of irony or apparent self-reflection). "Nowhere Else Could I Do This for Credit" , says the artist, while pondering why the 'contemporary art world' is struggling to explain...

The 'art world' should be ashamed that one of the last refuges of artistic beauty and value is not in the art world, but in the art produced by the artists of the video game industry ... I think there is more beauty and value in a single screenshot here than in all the works of the "Tate Modern" put together: http://www.videogamer.com/wii/secret_files_tunguska/screenshot-4.html (And there's plenty more like this out there.) Even the garbage bin is beautiful The rich, expansive virtual worlds created by video game artists are, in a loose sense, 'virtual art galleries' - they're often 'larger' than 'real' art galleries, you can comparably 'explore' them, and every virtual detail is almost like a small piece of art in its own right. If you're ever in London, try this "experiment": Visit the National Gallery (for its classical paintings collection) in the morning, and the Tate Modern in the aftern...