.ART

An artist is considered to be a person with the talent and the skills to conceptualize and make creative works. But the terms of the discussion have never been entirely clear. Are artists self-defined? What kinds of creative work count? Is there a secret to duct-taping banana to a wall in a particularly artistic fashion? It seems like the artistic community itself has not reached a consensus. Maybe NON.ART is a fitting domain for a website that hosts a discussion on such topics. 

MARRAKESH.ART or LASVEGAS.ART? Tricky question, but time will tell which of these remarkable domains will be put to better use. Meanwhile, one is left to wonder about the subjectivity of G8.ART!

The artistic community of .ART has seen some great additions this week both among legends (ROYLICHTENSTEIN.ART) and contemporaries. Curator, writer, photo-historian, artist, and founder and CEO of Curatorial, Inc., a museum services organization supporting nonprofit traveling exhibitions Graham Howe bow owns his name+surname domain. Howe’s photographic work is collected in museums and galleries including Harvard University, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York and the Victoria & Albert Museum, London.

Los Angeles-based iconic muralist Robert Vargas, who even has an intersection named in his honour in LA, is now also a .ART domain owner. His best-known works include a City of L.A. commissioned mural “Can’t Stop” of legendary Suicidal Tendencies frontman, “Mike Muir, and his “Warrior Odyssey” mural of skateboard Icon and Z-boy legend, Tony Alva for the Kinney Hotel in Venice. In 2013, Vargas was a key figure in helping Los Angeles lift its street art ban. 

Mural by Robert Vargas. Photo by Maria Eklind for Flickr.

And if anyone had any doubt that AI-generated art is still art, the purchase of DALLE.ART has resolved this question once and for all. The .ART domain is a stamp of artistic identity, if only a digital one!