A fun reminder in the New York Times today that long before television was blurring the lines between real life and fantasy with “Reality” TV, the art world was doing it, too.

Okay, the article I linked to is actually an overview of a performance art biennale. But that is the takeaway I got from reading it. In performance art, installations, live births, etc., artists have long taken the creation shortcut, trying to say their lives, actions, and more (and less) are actually worth the label “art”. Of course, sometimes this is totally legitimate, but all too often it is just vulgar — just like Reality TV.