The NY Times ran a story this week, which discusses the artistic merits of the game and offers some insightful observations on the relationship between games and art. The article also quotes and links to a discussion about Pac Mondrian held here on WCG back in July.

But perhaps the best evidence of a ligature between games and art comes affixed as a price tag. Apparently the artists listed on Ebay four 4x6 "master postcard proofs" of the piece, which closed at around -- wait for it -- US$10,000. The arcade cabinet installation of Pac Mondrian will be on exhibit at the Museum of the Moving Image from February - March, 2005. After the exhibition, the artists plan to auction off the cabinet too (click through below for the full press release).

What do you think, is this kind of game art sale a fluke, or is there a legitimate, ongoing market for original game-based art?

PRESS RELEASE

Pac-Mondrian nets $10,000 on eBay, US debut at NY's Museum of the Moving Image

Brief
-----

PBFB's Pac-Mondrian transforms Piet Mondrian's painting 'Broadway Boogie
Woogie' into a Pac-Man video game with boogie woogie sound effects.

At the end of PBFB's first solo show, the first eBay auction of original
PBFB art, the Pac-Mondrian Postcard Master Proofs, closed at $12,100CAN
($9900US).

The Museum of the Moving Image will host the US debut of the Pac-Mondrian Artcade Cabinet for two months starting early February 2005, after which it will be auctioned on eBay.

Pac-Mondrian Postcard Master Proofs eBay Auction
------------------------------------------------

After the Prize Budget for Boy's first solo show at Toronto's Art
Metropole Saturday December 4, they received a 1000+ word feature in the
Saturday Star on December 11 (the largest circulation newspaper in the
Greater Toronto Area). The timely newspaper article, combined with the
PBFB's audacious press debut in November's ARTnews (the largest
circulation art magazine in the world), and attention from major blogs
boingboing.net (Best American Blog - 2004 Bloggies) and metafilter.com
(Best Media Blog - Forbes 2003), resulted in PBFB's first auction price
reaching twelve times the reserve bid of $1000CAN, closing at $12,100CAN
($9900US) at 5pm EST Saturday December 11.

The market appears to be hot for what critic Peter Goddard declared "an
Internet Art Star", showing "the time has arrived for an art-shock from
cyberia". Based on the success of the first auction, the PBFB plans to
auction further original Pac-Mondrian art.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=3764343810

Museum of the Moving Image
--------------------------

Hot on the heels of a wave of publicity online and offline, the next
stop on the Lets Play Art World Tour will be Pac-Mondrian's US debut in
the updated "Digital Play" exhibit in the William Fox Gallery at the
Museum of the Moving Image in late January 2005. The fully functional
hand-painted Pac-Mondrian Artcade cabinet will make its way to New York,
where Pac-Man will dance through Mondrian's streets to the music that
inspired the painting.

In the fall of 1989, before “virtual” was a reality and before the
appearance of interactive multimedia, CD-ROMs, and something called the
World Wide Web, the American Museum of the Moving Image was the first
museum to survey the history of the world’s first digital entertainment
medium with the exhibition Hot Circuits: A Video Arcade. Fifteen years
later, witness the birth of Pac-Modernism as the little yellow 80's
arcade star takes on the New York art world in Pac-Mondrian.

At the close of the Pac-Mondrian exhibit at the Museum of the Moving Image, the Artcade cabinet will be auctioned on eBay to raise funds for the PBFB's planned series of artcade cabinets that pervert the narratives of Atari 2600 games to enact famous modern and contemporary art. With the proofs of a Pac-Mondrian multiple fetching $10,000 in the PBFB's first test of the market, the cabinet is expected to set a record for an online auction of original contemporary art.

Further details about the Museum of the Moving Image show and eBay
auction will be released as the date approaches.

About the Museum:

The American Museum of the Moving Image is dedicated to educating the
public about the art, history, technique, and technology of film,
television, and digital media and to examining their impact on culture
and society.

It achieves these goals by maintaining the nation's largest permanent
collection of moving image artifacts and by offering exhibitions, film
screenings, lectures, seminars, and other education programs.

http://www.movingimage.us/

Contacts
--------

PBFB:

Neil Hennessy
Prize Budget for Boys Founding Member
565 Sherbourne St.
Suite 107
Toronto, ON M4X 1W7 Canada
t: 416-929-1246
w: http://www.pbfb.ca/
e: nhennessy@alumni.uwaterloo.ca

Museum of the Moving Image:

Carl Goodman
Curator of Digital Media & Director of New Media Projects
Museum of the Moving Image
35 Avenue at 36 Street
Astoria, New York 11106
t: 718-784-4520, extension 227
w: http://www.movingimage.us
e: cgoodman@movingimage.us

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