Digital Works Of Art In Museums

From major, traditional galleries or museums? Never going to happen in our lifetime. They are going to be drawn kicking and screaming into reconizing the digital world as a true art form. They still think photography is an assult on real art.

Of course that will all change if one of them lands a huge patron with a lot of money that wants to see it happen. These large museums are nothing if they are not wh... (Wait a minue, can I use that word?).

Crickey, the whole world has a camera almost and they are learning fast to make very creative displays out of digital data.

The digital thing has really grabbed up even aging traditional painters so it must somehow or somewhere produce a Warhol like star to kick off it's existence at least in modern art sections of art museums I would think. Collage is a form which is near it and accepted as a painting for decades now....using cut out magazine photos and paint.

there's a museum downtown jacksonville Florida where my 3d cg hd film can be seen.
lotz of digital art in this film

http://greaterancestors.com/hello-world/

...ores. And yup.

I remember Hungarian graphic artist Victor Vaserely producing paintings which were digital in concept and he had worked out the designs with a pencil and magic markers. The same thing can be done now maybe using some computers except digital colors are not pure and change with printing.

Warhol like to stretch color values on screen printing and phot processing so I guess these guys are the digital pioneers.

there are several digitally enhanced photographs also at the National Museum in D.C..

Most museums exist to display rare artifacts of lasting interest. Digital prints aren't rare. If they are lost or destroyed it is easy to get more -- as many as you want, in fact.


Dan Turner
Dan Turner's Seven Keys to Selling Art Online

Nice joke Dan but I'm talking about great art, not common digital works. Yet there may be no great digital art.......as yet.

Once printed with ink these digital images are permanent plastic...and will last long enough if printed on durable materials like metal.

The Museum of Modern Art embraces all aspects of digital culture and design...MoMa....Always cutting edge!

I don't worry about museums - unless they'd like a few of mine.

David needs to have a big exhibition there at MOMA as well as Sharon!

"Nice joke Dan but I'm talking about great art"

Great art can be digital, no doubt about it. But if it isn't rare, it (generally) isn't going to be in any kind of legitimate museum. The exceptions are giclee reproductions of paintings that are too valuable to display. The originals are locked away in a vault.


Dan Turner
Dan Turner's Seven Keys to Selling Art Online

Dan,

How rare is "great art"? You are right any digital works will have to stand out from the huge masses. I can't imagine anything because some of the non digital things in museum selections called great art is not so great .

There will be someone whom the art galleries both private and public will select as the "leader" in the field I'll bet. The person will have to be more than a computer expert...this person will have to have unsurpassed talent and unique ability.

"The person will have to be more than a computer expert...this person will have to have unsurpassed talent and unique ability."

They are out there. Many are working on big budget films. Great art is alive and well.


Dan Turner
Dan Turner's Seven Keys to Selling Art Online

Yes Dan!

I had often thought about this myself. These special effects companies are full of young geniuses!
And in our modern world great art is really a team effort. Almost anything great is a team effort today, film music and bands, scientific discovery, athletics, business, government, you name it right?

San Francisco MOMA is currently expanding, seems like I remember that perhaps one of the floors had digital at one point in the rotation.

If I printed a digital image on canvas one time, then deleted the image file, the canvas would be unique.

I see digital work in museums all the time - prints, video, computer projections. Just go to any museum that displays modern art. Not every artist works with the goal of hanging in a gallery.

I recently saw a retrospective on Bjork at MOMA that included all kinds of digital work.

Here are a few:

Digital Art & Design - Victoria and Albert Museum:
http://www.vam.ac.uk/page/d/digital-art-and-design/

Digital Media Department | The Metropolitan Museum of Art:
http://www.metmuseum.org/about-the-museum/museum-departments/office-of-the-director/digital-media-department

Austin Museum of Digital Art
http://www.amoda.org/

MOCA: Museum of Computer Art
moca.virtual.museum/

A simple Google search brings up a ton.

Snap on your bennie and head out - A new Paris museum, la Gaité lyrique, has just opened, dedicated entirely to the digital. http://www.theparisblog.com/digital-museum-opens-in-paris/

https://museumofdigitalfinearts.wordpress.com/about/

"Art created painstakingly on Digital Canvases with utmost dedication is no different from previous materials and methods utilized in the past by talented men and women, who rendered captivating art work from their fertile imaginations. Today, it’s a reality that the electronics age is upon us, and future generations will choose to render their creative and prized art pieces with the aid of electronic tool as well, for art lovers and public audiences to enjoy. Art in digital/electronic forms, or in traditional forms, manifest through the same forces from the hearts and souls of being who sees the world around them in a very unique way. The output are then enjoyed by others for decorating their homes, their public spaces, corporate settings, etc. After-all, Art is just – Art!" - Museum of Digital Fine Arts

In commercial art paste up and rub off letters and designs began to fall away in the 1980's. Although in some small towns I see the newspaper printers still use old metal type blocks.

In the 80's again the sign business began leaving behind silk screen and hand painted lettering & illustration in favor of the new Gerber vinyl cutting CAD printers & computers.

Clip art became available then on disks for printers too. But it has been only recently that I have seen CAD cut vinyl used by artists at university art departments for a painting.

Change is inevitable and exciting!

Very well put, Edward.

Digital art is still really a relatively new medium. I don't think it would be any stretch of the imagination to assume that some of the works currently being produced by digital artist will one day be as iconic as some of the images of the old masters that we have become familiar with today. Give it time, I've seen plenty of digital art already, which I greatly admire.

I can leaf through a coffee table book or browse on a computer screen at images produced with either traditional or digital media and derive a similar level of appreciation for each. But that does not compare to the museum experience. I would be very willing to pay full admission to a museum showcasing digital art.

If I wanted to look at rare art, which I enjoy doing, then I would go to a museum that featured rare art. If I wanted to spend a few hours or half a day contemplating the unique imaginations of a few digital artists, well presented in a series of galleries, then I'd consider such an exhibition to be a very worthwhile way to spend the afternoon.

@Karl really ?
i i said that digital is new medium people started fighting and insulting me espaccialy old people :)

Don't assume museums are not collecting digital work just because you have not seen it. You have not seen even a half of the works in the Met. Most of the collection is not exhibited and in vaults below the museum and in safe storage in other locations. There are not enough walls to exhibit the vastness of the collection.

Thank you for the heads up The Digital.

I suppose I aught to prepare myself for a barrage of insults from an angry group of cane wielding senior citizens then. Seniors do have their opinions, too, I guess.

Vincent,

I am very unsure of which David you meant. There was no David above you in this thread.
IF you meant me I am very very flattered.

I sussed out the MoMA in person back in January 2014 with my mentor and his wife.
I also put in calls to the MoMA for the process. They have or had six departments. Each department
was aligned with a medium. There was no proper digital art department.

The MoMA has expanded. But if you put a screen up instead of a painting you would stop traffic at the MoMA.
That would be impossible to deal with. The MoMA is way over crowded as it stands. Literally stands still.
You can not use a slideshow. Simply.

I fully agree with Floyd and Dan.

But I can go one step further. The future of art will be measured in the value of how many copies can be made of a work.
Even the great master works will decline in value if no one wants a copy. At times trends will poke up in a given decade where
a great master's copies will matter and at other times be worthless. All of these museums will be constantly cashing in when and as
they can on the trends.

My work will never have anything to do with museums. Yes I could spring for prints and get in the local museum for a few months, but
never into the great collections of the MoMA or Met. etc......

This world will never be the same.

Dave

ITs making its way up the ranks. It will happen just like any past medium did. BTW digital painters are every bit as talented as traditional artists and the art world is taking notice.

Ed,

from your links in respective order....

articles and a radio broadcast

two labs in what is probably the world's largest museum by space

and then this from an actually Digital Museum....
"Currently, AMODA has no permanent physical space or venue."

Pixels is my museum space.

Dave

David Bridburg, yes I meant you of course. I can understand not wanting any work in a museum. A museum holds the art of the dead really so it is not such a welcome destination is it? It's a mausoleum of sorts. A dead zone for sure occupied by spirits out of control. A graveyard with monumental markers.

Thanks Edward. That new digital museum in Canadaa at the forefront. If digital art stands alone is it separate from photography? What do you think of their selection?

The one thing I noticed about digital works is they are too full in general for my mind to enjoy. Even brush painters tend to fill up the space too much. Or maybe it's just my desire for less clutter visually.

I think the new digital will be something like Star Trek's "Holodeck". Programs will create life like people and environments using robotics and sensing devises which will allow a completely new world of a digital reality. Movies will be made using digital re-creations of the most popular stars after scanning everything and there will be no more physical actors in scenes.

Ultimately digital won't stand alone. Just like I don't seem many oil painting museums or sidewalk chalk museums. Digital works are currently being displayed in museums around the world along side other mediums.

The criteria for selection exists. Museums are looking for important works that have something to say.

BTW - what's exciting about something painted 200 years ago that has no relevance to the modern world? Dust them off and admire the brush strokes but where is the relevance? ;-)

The one thing I noticed about digital works is they are too full in general for my mind to enjoy. Even brush painters tend to fill up the space too much. Or maybe it's just my desire for less clutter visually.

Vincent,

I agree with this. These days are the wild west for digital artists, so many do not work with composition well.

April and Cynthia are more than talented digital artists who do work well with composition.

I think part of the problem is too many gamers become digital artists along the way.

But each artist has to stand on their own merit so at the end of the day people who make clutter are on their own.

Dave

Ed.

Last year when I checked MoMA had six departments reviewing work. Each department was based on medium. No
digital department.

Only some paintings from 200 years ago matter. They matter because they show the progress of humanity culturally,
scientifically and politically. Plus they had to demonstrate huge amounts of craft.

Dave

"After-all, Art is just – Art!"

Until it also needs to be an investment, which requires scarcity. Digital don't play that :-)

The new digital museums are, in fact, galleries rather than museums.


Dan Turner
Dan Turner's Seven Keys to Selling Art Online

Dan is correct as it relates to collectables.
collectors want items that are NOT mass produced and has provenance. unsigned prints sold on line to the general population do not meet this criteria.
signed and numbered or cataloged prints by the artist are more rare and this goes for digital art.
original art produced by the hand of the artist is the rarest and always will be. this fits the criteria of collectables.

Sure, there are limited productions and they too are collectable.

You cant measure meaning of digital art by that
Most people think straight and cant undestand more than thay can
If there is no digital art in museums what does it mean? museums are just librery of ar paintings
nowday you can save your digital art file in your pc and share people

thats why never be exist online luxury museums :)

every museum art peace is a mass produced as print etc . .. .

Art museums typically have the master originals or a rare copies, not common facsimiles.
you find those in their gift shops.

Drew
for me there is no different
when i look painting i wach content

The Perez Art Museum in Miami (PAMM) features contemporary and modern art and displays digital, video and photographic art displays along with more traditional media.

What Drew and Dan said.

Posting the exception is not answering the op, imho.

The question seems to be more of when if ever it will become common place in "the" major museumes, not the rare or even common place in minor or specialized museum or gallery.

That is a very long time off for the reasons that both Dan and Drew gave. Unless, as I said... Some rich "patron" makes it happen. One of these museums will take the money and make it happen.

As Floyd would probably point out, limited edition collectible art is sold every day from reproducible mediums.

This includes prints, etchings, photographs, silkscreens etc and digitally created artwork.

.....

The OP says "digital effects art works" - this needs to be defined better? Are we talking about movie effects created by teams of people?

Art has to be an investment to be featured in a museum?

Not really. Museums draw crowds and sell tickets with installations these days. Installations which are often digital art don't necessarily remain as part of the traditional museum "collection" or even exist after the event.

....

Now on the other hand artists working with traditional materials mimicking the digital world (pixels, grids) are all the rage in museums. Chuck Close is just one artist that comes to mind.

Yup. We have several artist including digital artists in FAA that have publishing contracts with tier one publishers of signed and numbered, limited editions.

Digital; When I visit a museum I just go to each gallery with an open mind.

You say you watch for content when you look at a painting. What do you mean?

I mean for me medium is not important printed mona lisa and original is same for me :)

Just the statue David is the same in a photo as traveling to Florence to see it in person. Not.

Edward Fielding
Real statue and 3d statue model is same for me even if it small or even i see it in pc :)

book and audio e book is same for me

i dont care who will play turkish murch i care to listen it

I have seen digital art represented in many top tier museums. Not a lot but it is there. Often at a place like MoMA one sees a setup with print making/photography/digital getting its own space on a floor. My personal observation is one has no problem viewing those works, as the crowds are in the rooms with the "traditional" art, especially Impressionism and Modern (particularly the POPs). This does not mean it will be that way forever, but it is for now.

Digital, you said "for me" so I will refrain from any attack, but the idea that a digital copy of the Mona Lisa is the same as the original doesn't sit well with me. There is an argument to be made that with all famous works of art and monuments, that we have "seen" them so much in documentaries and on the internet that the actual "thing" can be a let down. Still, I would refer one to the seminal work of Magritte: "This is NOT a Pipe." A digital copy of an original painting is not that painting. Sigh.

Just like there are photography museums through out the country. Digital is no different. Its all just pixels transferred to a surface then hung on a wall. Displaying it is the same process as photography.

I disagree with statement that a picture of art is the same as seeing the artwork itself. I would rather see the Monalisa in person, which probably will never happen, than to see a picture of it. The eye captures more information than a camera does.

Yea OK

repeat

The old real art verses cyber art is like the civil war come to think of it. Lines on one side and then the other waiting for the bugle call to charge in a bloody battle!