Switched has a new home! Huffpost Tech.

Click here to visit the new home of Switched!

Hot on HuffPost Tech:

See More Stories
AOL Tech

With YouTube Play, the Guggenheim Searches for the Next Great Video Artist

by Matthew Zuras on June 14, 2010 at 01:30 PM

youtube play
Well, the Internet has won. The last exclusive, nigh-impenetrable institution known as the art world has buckled to the social media cloud. The New York Times reported yesterday that the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation has joined forces with YouTube to create a user-driven biennial of video art, to be exhibited at all four of the Guggenheim's global outposts. The project, called YouTube Play, encourages budding video artists (or even first-time dabblers) to upload clips of themselves or their work for a chance to cross the gaze of high-end curators.

Starting today, aspiring artists can submit their videos -- only one entry per person, made within the last two years and not extending ten minutes in length -- to be assessed by a team of Guggenheim curators. Once the best 200 videos have been selected, a panel of nine judges (composed of experts in the fields of visual arts, music, graphic design, film-making and animation) will filter those submissions down to a pool of twenty, which will then go on display simultaneously at the Solomon R. Guggenheim in New York, the Deutsche Guggenheim in Berlin, the Guggenheim Bilbao in Spain and the Peggy Guggenheim Collection in Venice.

This crowd-sourcing project is a bold move for an institution like the Guggenheim, which, like other major museums, typically looks for established artists with either impressive resumés or swelling auction prices. This kind of democratization also comes on the heels of last week's premier of 'Work of Art' on Bravo, the first fine art reality show, based on the incredibly popular 'Project Runway' formula. Heavyweight auctioneer Simon de Pury mentors the contestants, who have varying experience in the art world, while New York Magazine critic Jerry Saltz helps to judge the works. With 'Work of Art' and YouTube Play, have the sober doyens of the art world decided to climb down from their lofty ivory tower?

The New York Times spoke to Robert Storr, dean of the Yale University School of Art, who doesn't seem to think that these lowly experiments will result in new masterpieces. "The museum as revolving door for new talent is the enemy of art and of talent, not their friend," Storr said, "and the enemy of the public as well, since it refuses to actually serve that public but serves up art as if it was quick-to-spoil produce from a Fresh Direct warehouse." Well, then.

Still, we're happy to see unknowns get their chance at a global museum show that would've been unthinkable before the age of the Internet. This move by the Guggenheim constitutes an embrace of the social networking culture that is increasingly defining Western society and entertainment, but also a PR bid to make the museum look young again. After a largely inscrutable solo show by performance artist Tino Sehgal alienated many museum-goers earlier this year, the Guggenheim may be looking to remove itself some from the high-concept metrics that have guided recent exhibitions, and bring its programming back down to Earth. But, if 'Work of Art' is any indication, this may be more of a crash and burn than it is the revelation of the next Maya Deren. [From: New York Times]


Tags: art, bravo, crowdsourcing, guggenheim, JerrySaltz, museum, ProjectRunway, SimonDePury, SocialNetworking, TinoSehgal, top, VideoArt, WorkOfArt, youtube, YoutubePlay

HuffPost AOL Social News Most Popular