The first Art Gallery for Video Games will open next month in Chicago to celebrate artistic creativity in the world of video games and video art. The project is the culmination of delving into art and video game trysts by a non-profit organization called the Video Game Art Gallery, DNA Info reports. They have found a physical location at the Bloomingdale Arts Building in the city that will offer a kind of cultural picnic in the city of Chicago. It is also one of the few specimens of this genre in North America.
Video games with art and religious expression
The art gallery will focus on selling high-quality prints through its website besides organizing exhibitions, artist residencies and various pop-up events in local art halls. Among the video game art offered by the company, there are samples by those of the Rebuild Foundation like Bronzeville or a concoction of physics and architecture as in Playstation games. The games definitely have artistic merits including mobile phone games like Candy Crush or professionally oriented games like Call of Duty.
The inaugural game of the company included the Saviour from the communist land of Cuba and is perhaps modeled after the redeemer of Christ the Saviour. This is a video game of the metaphysical type about the deconstruction of the world in which it was derived and was developed by two Cuban natives, a duo of artist and programmer, Timeout Chicago noted.
Art gallery cum open public space
There is a lot of personal descriptiveness and self-expression in the art of video games, but besides offering art events and exhibitions, the company will also throw open the space of the gallery to the public for their accommodation needs like a quirky kid of Airbnb rental at a market dictated price.
Other similar video game art galleries in the country include the National Videogame Museum in Texas and the Babycastles Gallery in New York city.
As part of the funding strategy for the video game art gallery in Chicago, the founders Evans and Kinkley used an area of 800 square feet in a former metal stamp factory and they started a Kickstarter crowdfunding campaign to raise money to cover the initial costs of setup and administration.
While Jonathan Kinkley is the executive director of the company, Chaz Evans is the director of exhibitions and programmes and both of them are working hard together to make the project a success.
After opening to the public on August 11, the gallery will then be open to visitors two days a week from 5 PM to 8 PM on Wednesdays and from midday to 5 PM on Sundays.
