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this post was submitted on 23 Feb 2026
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"Is X art" is usually a question that ends in elitist bullshit that reinforces "true" art as solely the realm of the finicial elite. The only "true" art disciplines also happen to be ones which require the artist to have an independent source of income or risk destitution. "A gentleman never works". Meanwhile any art that serves a practical function, that is easily with in the reach of the lower classes, is shunned. You don't find many nepo trust fund babies doing wedding photography or sculpting miniatures or drawing weird porn (An extreme example, but the truth is that furry commission you just finished will probably bring the owner more actionable joy than anything they will ever see in a gallery).
This goes beyond the commiditification of art, although it is exacerbated by it, this is about practicality. Demystified art, that is still tied to its use value and serves a function, is a threat to the idea that art is somehow elevated beyond the realm of mere trade and is instead a mystic priesthood caste.
Trade artists are treated as lepers both by the backstabbing art grant gladiators fighting over the coins the government tosses into their gutter and by the "serious" working world. This is why we see industries like game development chew these people up and spit them out.
Used to be pretty common that well of ladies would do crafts like wood carving, embroidery and stuff like that to keep their hands busy even when they had housekeepers to do the brunt of the domestic labor.
At least that's what my grandma told me but she has an impressive collection of antique craft magazines to back it up.
This is the main reason I would rather do this than work as a "fine artist" for rich snobs. I'd like to not worry about bills and rent, so unfortunately that comes first above everything else, obviously, but I'd rather make art that people enjoy, even if they have "unconventional" tastes, rather than art that is just used by the rich as a tax write off or to assist in huffing their own farts.
What shocked me when I started doing adult art as a side gig was just how gratious people were. People were so happy to have their needs met that they would go out of their way to tell me how much it meant to them. In all my years as an artist I dont think I've ever had anyone, never mind multiple people, tell me that something I made had quantifiably improved their lives. It kind of shifted my whole view on the function of art.
Yeah, it's my favourite part of the job, I've never felt like I've actually provided something valuable for people before I started drawing adult art. Every job I had before that it always felt like the public only ever saw me as a "food dispenser" (I used to be a chef) and had 0 respect for the people who made their lunch every day. I was little more than a vending machine to them. I know that feeling isn't surprising to literally anyone here, but it is actually incredible how much my life has improved since I started working doing something I enjoy that people appreciate. Capitalism is a fuck and I hate how wretched a commodity the working class has become.
This is my favorite take in the thread, i declare anything else as counterrevolutionary.
did you read the article
My point is that engaging in the arguement of "What is art" regardless of your actual position lends it legitmacy. In my opinion, the only correct answer to "What is art" is to say "who cares" (if you are feeling polite). Its an inherently idealist arguement that obfuscates the material reality of artists and their works.
did you read the article
did you read the article
Yes, and your position is the position of the article.
My "position" is that the article shouldn't exist at all.
did you read the article
Oh boy.
Video Games are containers for art, but at the end of the day they tend to be a commodity.
I appreciate the serious response, but I was just being silly and parroting what everyone else was doing, because you clearly had already read the article.
So are movies not art, because most are just a commodity?
Music? Books?
Like how does that not apply to every art form in late stage capitalism?
It does, that's the point. "Games" as a concept aren't art, they are a medium that contains art, or facilitates art. Games, movies, and books are all the same, with just different levels of abstraction from the base art.
I think the whole argument here is that the commodity form of art should not be considered art because it is the reification of the artistic labor it contains that has taken the commodity form.
I think the whole "games are art" argument of that era was flawed, and there was a point to be made there, since that position was ignoring the specific individual artistic labor that goes into them.
Stuff like shader authoring, texture optimization, sound engineering, writing, voice acting, etc. are all unique forms of art that come together in a gallery that is a game. You don't call a gallery art.
But a video game is a whole. It’s surely made of many many small parts, that are artistic in their own right. But only the finished, whole, piece is the art.
And being more or less commercial isn’t what makes art art.
Art is the way to communicate an abstraction, and transport the viewer to it. It’s an exercise in empathy, of the artist to communicate it and the audience to experience it.
a gallery certainly can itself be art, either on its own or in conjunction, but "lol we hung some paintings up in a room", like some of the exhibitions i've been to, definitely isn't art by default.
Agreed, but it doesn't have to be. That's how I see games and movies (books are a bit more difficult since they tend to be a single author and not a cooperative effort of thousands of artists).
Saying that games or movies as a commodity form is art is nonsense to me because it's always case by case. Hell, even the most capitalist form can contain art, Blender exists because the creators made it for an advertisement back in the 90s. That advertisement wasn't art, but the system used to make it became art.
Basically the whole argument is pointless and you don't need to be all or nothing since each work can be approached piecemeal as well as on its whole.
A factory making cars isn't making art, but the component parts of that process contain art. Because art is a very individual thing, and can only be collectively meaningful as art when the participants in the project are operating outside framework of capitalist labor relations. Specifically because at all stages of that capitalist process, the art of individual contributors is reified and killed to construct the commodity.