VIDEO GAME ART: Nintendo's "Art Academy" to Produce Next Great Artist

NEW YORK-- Anyone who's ever visited a contemporary art gallery and thought "my kid could do better" should look into the forthcoming Art Academy, out in October, which condenses the art world into a concise video game to be played on the hand-held Nintendo DS. As its creators note, the module "replaces the lecture-like structure of art school and the trial-and-error of working on canvas." (And at $19.99, it's a hell of a lot cheaper than a semester at SVA.)

More confounding is Nintendo's assertion that Art Academy will "teach real-world art skills." Is there an advanced stage in which one must get drunk, but not so drunk that it's impossible to suck up to Jerry Saltz at your opening? Perhaps a bonus round in which the budding artist has to fight the bedbug infestation in her Bushwick loft?

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