No one's angry like an angry artist. Whether it's because they feel unappreciated for their alleged genius, or their works aren't in the finest galleries, or they're not making Rothko-like bucks (Ding ding ding! We have a winner!), paintbrush-pushers think Ars Gratia Artis is the name of a world-music band they feel obliged to listen to.
And don't get them started on this guy.
It's not a stretch, then, that many of them have blown their berets in anger when judges at the Colorado State Fair Fine Arts Competition awarded its apparently-coveted first prize to blue ribbon to Théâtre D'opéra Spatial, created by Midjourney, an artificial intelligence program.
Not that Midjourney didn't have a little help. A tech whiz named Jason Allen pushed the buttons, moved the mouse, typed the information or whatever it was he did to pull off this stunt on his computer. So hey, maybe the laptop is simply the 21st-century easel.
Sure it's art. But is it pixels?
Tell that to the person who goes under the name OmniMorpho, who wrote on Twitter, "We're watching the death of artistry unfold before our eyes." That's rich, coming from someone on a platform (Twitter) that allows only a couple dozen words in something called a Tweet, and who uses an anime image as their avatar.
And has OminMorpho visited New York's Museum of Modern Art or the Whitney? Catch those respected halls of culture at the wrong time, and you'd understand the death of artistry happened a long time ago. 
Now that's the work of artificial intelligence.
If you're ever in doubt, consider the work entitled Where Shall We Go Dancing Tonight? which went on display in Italy's Museion Museum. The museum's overnight cleaner quite rightly believed it was garbage, and threw it out -- usually the correct response to anything called an "art installation".
I'm not sure why anybody would care about a prize given at a state fair better known for its livestock competitions. Whatever happened to that "beauty is in the eye of the beholder" jazz I used to hear about? Since when do artists need a piece of ribbon to justify their existence? 
It's all bull, anyway.
What do you want to bet that many of the artists complaining about the death of art listen to, say, rap, which many others consider the death of music? Sheesh, I remember when people were afraid that the use of synthesizers in 1980s pop music marked the end of real instruments.
Fast forward four decades. Bands still play guitars, pianos and drums. Orchestras are chock-full of musicians making their way around brass, woodwinds and strings. And painters still use paint. Consider Theatre D'opera Spatial the "She Blinded Me with Science" of art. It was cool at the time, but it's no "Rhapsody in Blue".
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