Wednesday, September 22, 2010

Youtube in the big leagues

The times are definitely a changin. If you’d told me 5 years ago that one of the most prestigious museums in the world was going to hold an exhibit of Youtube videos as art, I would have seriously doubted the museum’s artistic integrity and standards. The popularity of Youtube has created a shift in the preferred medium of expression of many artists from pen and paper or paint and canvass to the digital media more particularly online videos. Youtube has provided this great big canvass/vehicle where everyone can exhibit, share and admire each other’s work for free from anywhere in the world. Artists are given the opportunity to reach an audience bigger than they can have possibly imagined and for that more and more are turning to digital media to create and showcase their work. Embracing this development in the arts, Guggenheim announced a collaboration with Youtube entitled “Youtube Play. A Biennial of Creative Video”, a project that will showcase the 20 most creative online videos at the Guggenheim in New York on Oct. 21. Out of the 23,000 videos that were submitted, 125 has already been selected by a distinguished panel of judges that include Darren Aronosky (the only one I’m familiar with). Youtube a recognized legitimate art form? Who would have thought.

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