The Fine Arts Perspective

"Video game graphics as fine art presents a number of challenges to the museum curator of prints and drawings.  To begin with, video games are just that - games - and the temptation to dismiss them as nothing more than entertainment for the masses is powerful.  They are also subject to a series of externally imposed, creatively restricting formulae; they are serial in nature, and thus subordinate to the need to tell a story quickly and efficiently; they are transient (that is, designed to be consumed and discarded at a rapid rate); they can be dependent upon the visual language of a traditional mimetic animation that seeks the closest equivalent of reality; and they have a tendency to emphasize carnage at the expense of other human behaviors.  These, at any rate, are the perceptions/prejudices that I brought to the tablet when I was asked to help judge a seleection of video game artwork for Into The Pixel. To my surpris, those prejudices were, in academic parlance, quickly problematized, if not exploded."

-- Kevin Salatino, Curator, LACMA