May 17-18: Critical Play—The Game as an Art Form

The Art of Video Games Exhibit — The Smithsonian Are games art? The debate rages on, fueled by film critic Roger Ebert, who in 2010 famously proclaimed “no video gamer now living will survive long enough to experience the medium as an art form.”

Later this week, as part of their Contemporary Art Forum, the Museum of Modern Art will gather an esteemed group of scholars and curators from the fields of art history, architecture, video games, and the digital humanities to examine how games and art have collided.

From the program description:

From Marcel Duchamp’s chess games to Lygia Clark’s puzzles, artists throughout the 20th century have adopted the structures and strategies of games. In recent years, they have begun to explore virtual, online, and video games in their work—as well as game theory, an increasingly critical framework for audience engagement and participation—to create social interactions. This two-day forum brings together artists, educators, curators, and game theorists to discuss the influence of game theory on art practice and the ways in which art making has reformulated audience engagement and learning.

Tickets ($10, $8 members and corporate members, $5 students, seniors and staff of other museums) are available online.

Visit the MoMA’s website for details.

(Photo by Blake Patterson)

  • The Art of Video Games Exhibit — The Smithsonian