:smack: Doh! Thanks.
Well, I’ve said it elsewhere recently, but I’ll repeat it here: I think if someone presents it to you as art, it gets to be art. You then get to decide if you think it’s good or bad art*. I do this partly because there are no absolutes in art, and it’s easier for the other party to accept that your opinion is that you don’t like their art than it is for you to express your opinion that their work isn’t even art. Either way, you’re pretty much expressing the same thing.
In the case of Tetris, I think MoMa made a good decision, Tetris is good art. It’s not only a very compact, neat design in its original incarnation, but it does say something about its creator. I’m not going to bore you with what I think it says about the world, but its existence and history are a commentary on the world it was made in. On the other hand, I think MoMa selected it because its task as a game is similar to an art task, being centered around shapes.
I was actually delighted when I visited MoMa to see this Bell helicopter hung there. In the same way many ancient art museums have armor, vases and textiles shown as art; it is a functional object, and an object of beauty.
- And even then, there’s art that I think is good, but don’t enjoy; and art that I think is bad that I still enjoy consuming.
This is basically the way I think of art as well. The first time I came across a definition like this was in Frank Zappa’s autobiography.