Manetas at the ATHENS BIENNIAL 2018
miltos-manetas-the-internet-paintings
Click here to view the introductory video.
Miltos Manetas is a Greek-born painter, conceptual artist and theorist whose work explores the representation and the aesthetics of the information society. Manetas is the Founder of NEEN (the first art movement of the 21st century), a pioneer of art-after-videogames (MACHINIMA) and an instigator of Post-Internet Art. In 2009 he initiated the INTERNET PAVILION for the Venice Biennial, in 2014, in collaboration with Rome's Swiss Institute, he introduced the concept of ÑEWPRESSIONISM. These days he is using DOCUMENTA 14 to develop the concept of MEDIOSUD. According to LEV MANOVICH, Manetas' art can be placed within a well-established tradition in modern painting (representing modern people in their particular modern settings). According to NICOLAS BOURRIAUD Manetas' work belongs to the domain of RELATIONAL AESTHETICS and POST-PRODUCTION
»The subject of my art is myself«
»el tema de mi trabajo soy yo«
»il tema de mio lavoro sono Io«
»Como migliorare una pittura? Guardandola!«
»Come programmare la vita? Dipingendola«
I lost my grip on the rock, and I started going down on my back, slowly for two seconds, and accelerating immediately after. I remember everything, the whole timeline. My memory has kept every detail enveloped and timestamped. One-Two-Three-Four! I remember that for these first four seconds, I was simply mad with disbelief. I was upset with my destiny, annoyed that it was letting down my crazy plan of arriving at the beach by descending the impossible surface of a very steep rock. Five! By the fifth second, I was already falling very fast. Six-Seven- Eight! I could see only the void at the edge of the rock about thirty meters away, and I knew that I was about to die. Read more
Ancona, 21 luglio 2010 - L'artista greco Miltos Manetas torna ad Ancona, dopo la disavventura che lo aveva visto protagonista ai primi di giugno, quando in un'escursione sul Conero fece una rovinosa caduta che gli costò un ricovero in ospedale. L'occasione per il ritorno è fornita dalla rassegna 'Incontro con l'autore', organizzata al Fortino Napoleonico di Portonovo. All'evento parteciperà con tre sculture inedite Enzo Cucchi, il maestro della Transavanguardia, che ha voluto al suo fianco, come ospite speciale, l'artista multimediale greco. ilrestodelcarlino.it
Cucchi and Manetas ilrestodelcarlino.it
“There is a fundamental error in painting-in every school of painting: we always paint on a plane that’s different from the plane of reality. We either paint on a canvas or on some other support positioned in parallel or in front of the world, we never paint over the reality itself, we never “paint reality”. “That was to change for me when - back in 2010 - I had an accident: I went down 117 meters from the top of a rock on my back, a little tree finally saving my life... After a month of immobility in the hospital, I returned to the place where I had the accident and I rented a little yellow house. Waiting to recover completely, I had my colors and canvasses brought there but I couldn’t paint: regular painting just didn’t seamed a good idea anymore. Finally one day, I took a brush and without any color on it, I started “painting” over the landscape. was making an invisible painting... ”A few days after my discovery, I start filming whatever it was I was painting with my BlackBerry (my right hand the hand of the painter, the left the hand of a videomaker). I was happy, a BlackBerry and a brush was now all I needed for a studio! That’s how the BLACKBERRY PAINTINGS were born and I decide to go on with my life and at the same time paint it.”
“ in Milan, Italy
Just recently, all art that deals with computers directly, became data itself. It started referencing other data and lost its status of "Avant-garde".
“ in Venice, Italy
Biennale
The Island of Internet & BYOB (Bring Your Own Beamer, an exhibition series created by Rafael Rozendaal) The artists are invited to bring their own machines and projecting on any space that they can grab. Its a desperate attempt to open a few windows of fantasy and creativity over a heavily nested "real space". BYOB is one of the few original expressions-even if its somewhat of a grimace- that are still possible to be achieved with visual arts. Its the scream of our extended bodies, while trapped between computer keyboards and the unnatural light of the computer projectors. Artists: Agnes Bolt, Alterazioni Video, Andreas Angelidakis, Angelo Plessas, Anna Franceschini, Billy Rennekamp, Boris Eldagser, Britta Thie Claudia Rossini Cristian Bugatti Elisa Giardina Papa Emily Jones & Sarah Hartnett (, year of the Hare) Giallo Concialdi Hayley Silverman Interno3 and crew Iocose Ivano Atzori Jaime Martinez Jeremy Bailey Les liens invisibles LG Williams/Estate Of LG Williams Luca Bolognesi LuckyPDF Marc Kremers Marco Cadioli Marisa Olson Marlous Borm Martin Cole Matteo Erenbourg Mike Ruiz Miltos Manetas Nazareno Crea Nikola Tosic Parker Ito Pegy Zali Petros Moris Priscilla Tea Rachele Maistrello Rafaël Rozendaal Rene Abythe Riley Harmon Sarah Ciraci Tele Ghetto Haiti Theodoros Giannakis Travess Smalley UBERMORGEN.COM Valery Grancer Wojciech Kosma Yuri Pattison
“ FourfortyFour Paintings in Rome, Italy
at UNPAINTED in Munich.
“ in Rome, Italy
Studio in Rome
Preparing a painting
“I start painting "Google Nature Paintings" in Derveni
“"Google Nature Paintings" in Derveni
“The World appears now "stamped" with digital objects. Those objects (data/menus/pictures/movies/sounds/code) are not at all present the way the prophets virtual-reality predicted but they are simply "attached" on the World via our imagination (the only true computer). They are attached on quite everything...
Overeality
Overeality
“ Suddenly its all about little screens... I decide to start painting portraits of my daughter Alpha as she grows up framed in the different evolution versions of those screens.. I also start doing "Parallel Portraits" and give as a present to those I love. Those who receive those paintings have the choose to either keep its "screen" as it is (blank) or ask me to paint their portrait in it..
“"New Groups" in Rome
2013, "Skype Paintings" in Rome
The idea of MedioSud was born when Marina Fokidis invited me to write a text for her new-born magazine South. That was just after my daughter Alpha was born, I was living in the South of Europe again- in Rome- after many years spend in the World's North (USA, UK, Paris etc) and I had start thinking about it.. What was this place now- the Mediterranean basin- after all these years, after the Internet? Who were those people such as Fokidis and other old friends and family? Most of them would cry for help -as if the sky had fallen on their heads- (the crisis! the crisis!), still, having spend a bit of time in Colombia, I wouldn't believe them. So I visited Greece and I realized that the country and its people never looked more interesting and alive, I looked around Europe and I show a Middle South rising, a new reality that isn't "South" no-more, still its not - and doesn't agree to become - a Total North either. So I wrote for Fokidis' magazine "My Family in Middle South" and when a few months later, Salvatore Lacagnina and Rome's Swiss Institute, asked me to write something about art in Rome (for their contribution to Berlin Biennial), I took that opportunity to write a little manifesto about how I imagined art in Middle South-the art in MedioSud. And then-suddenly- a miracle: Pope Benedict XVI (Joseph Ratzinger) decide to resign! As the history of the South was always depending on Christianity, I felt that the possibility or a new Middle South Movement starts existing exactly on the day the Pope resigns and the world is left unshadowed -for a bit a least- free from that religious ghost. Therefore, on Feb 28, 2013, I introduced MedioSud at the MACRO in Rome. In 2015- Greece surprised us all the way Ratzinger did two year earlier: the SYRIZA government had decide to put together a Mondial Performance by asking the Greek People if they agreed to continue be exploited by Europe. They answered NO, Europe ignored them and went on exploiting them. During the Greek Summer of NO, Adam Szymczyk, announced Athens as one of the two cities that will be hosting DOCUMENTA 14, the very Northern exhibition Total North is using to teach to the World "the way to be intellectual" (the Latin word "documentum" comes from "docere" -teach- and "mens" -intellect.)
“In Bogotá, Colombia”
“In Rome, Italy”
In Rome, Italy
“In Rome, Italy”
After having sailed together with the PirateBay in 2009 and after having conquered the island of San Servolo in 2011, the "Internet Pavilion" is now based in the old Oratory of San Ludovico, a holy church from the XVI Century. On the bare walls of the little Chapel, Miltos Manetas realizes a cycle of oil paintings inspired by the devotional paint work of the Venetian Renaissance. However, if Vittore Carpaccio - for example - in the Scuola di San Giorgi has glorified the gestures of St. George who killed the dragon, the Greek artist chooses a totally different kind of holy protectors for his Church. Patron saints of the Internet Pavilion are in fact the Unconnected: those people who indeed still live without an email or social network account, miraculously immune from internet dependency.
In an age like ours, where the border between real and virtual has collapsed, the digital Unconnected seem like real monks or holy men who – voluntarily or not – are detached from the world through an ascetic practice, being free from the chaotic flow of images and information. To show them how life works in the era of smart phones, between 2.0 vices and multimedia paradises, there is a “Tintoretto style” painting by Miltos Manetas, portraying the postures and behavior of those who come in contact with the web. Astonished looks, fixed on small mobile phone screens, or the expression of thinkers filmed by the laptops webcams, animate paintings of various sizes which, set up in a sacred space, recall both the polyptychs or the altar pieces as much as the opened tabs on a computer desktop.
To know who the Unconnected really are is not easy. For this reason the power of the network has been challenged. A recruiting campaign has been launched on Facebook during the 2 months preceding the opening of the Biennial. The social network users have been asked whether they knew people who weren’t online and requested to advise the Internet Pavilion staff about their first names and surnames. Quickly a series of identities from various profiles was formed: from the parents of very popular bloggers to famous singers and showmen. Among the Unconnected there are, for example, Luigi Ontani and Enzo Cucchi, two of the most well known Italian artists, or Donald Knuth, computer technician and emeritus professor of the Stanford University, who at a certain stage of his life decided to repudiate Internet.
The list is clearly still incomplete. In order to evoke the spirit of the Unconnected inside the pavilion, some participants will act in the exhibition space on the opening day and in the following months. Particularly the bharatanatyam dance expert Marianna Biadene and the computer engineer Pasquale Fedele, who specialize in neuron interfaces. The borderline meeting between contemporary dance, ritual and brain control, under the sign of painting, will give life to a lyrical moment, unique and one-off, which will distance the audience from the expository bulimia typical of the Biennale to be transported to a contemplative dimension of inner peace.
The multiform results of the III Internet Pavilion are collected in the exhibition’s catalog. The publishing is a special edition of Solo, the monographic magazine edited by AcM Collezione Coppola: a precious element to decode the history and the symbols of this Internet Pavilion 2013.
The research of and about the Unconnected will then continue in unpredictable ways thanks to the collaboration with Nero Magazine.
Produced by: Associazione E, AmC, Nuova Icona, Collezione Coppola
Media partners: Gloria Maria Gallery, NERO, My Art Guide, Lightbox, UP3 Architetti Associati, Liquidweb, Drago Publishing.
In Sabina
In Sabina
First in Rome
then in Milan
To understand this years Pavilion, I have to tell you first about the next one, the Pavilion I am planning for 2017. The theme will be TOGETHERNESS and that was actually the theme that I envisioned initially for 2015, but then I realized, that we are actually very far from TOGETHERNESS yet .. And when I say far, I mean we are far from even start thinking seriously about Togetherness: we are still at the stage of a-man-in-front-of-a-computer-screen, looking on what we call ”Internet”. So, I decide, to take a closer look to that “Internet” by making one or two videos per day, recording everything and recording myself and others as well, while we are "looking“.
at UNPAINTED in Munich.
at UNPAINTED in Munich.
at UNPAINTED in Munich.
“2016: Reanimar el arte político colombiano para la Colombia de hoy."Re-enacting Colombian Political Art for today's Colombia".
Genova at Villa Croce Contemporary Art Museum
Online exhibition hosted and powered by 63rd77thsteps.com As part of: The Internet Saga Artists: Sarah Abu Abdallah, Basma Al Sharif, Johanna Bruckner, FAKA, Gina Folly, ForeverAdaForever, Foundland, Chiara Fumai, Tiril Hasselknippe, Jerome Hill, Institute for New Feeling, Karl Larsson, Kareem Lotfy, Malibu 1992, Miltos Manetas, Eva Papamargariti, Luca Pozzi, Tabita Rezaire, Harry Sanderson, Fabio Santacroce, Bogosi Sekhukhuni, Chai Siris, Berkay Tuncay, Brent Watanabe. Online opening: Thursday 23rd June 2016, www.63rd77thsteps.com Public presentation: 8th July 2016, Villa Croce Contemporary Art Museum
“in Bogotá, at La Candelaria..
“05:05" was a five minutes show that opened on 05:05 AM on "a beautiful road" in Sabina on July 30th, 2016. The show lasted about 55 minutes presenting the work of 5 artists: Alessandro Gianní , Joseph Kosuth, Miltos Manetas, Valentina Nascimben & Nora Renaud. Each work was visible for about 5 minutes. The show closed down at 06:06 AM. 6 cars were used to access the "beautiful road". The first car was carrying the artists that-in alphabetical order- had to pick a spot and install their work in a zone of 555 meters around the point where the "beautiful road" meets the river. The last car was carrying movie directors Emiliano Montanari & Gerdi Petanaj filming the event from a distance and collecting the works. At 5:55 AM, a 6 minutes ceremony was performed at the Agriturismo Paradiso before the closing of the show at 06:06AM.
Davide Quadrio (乐大豆) and his team invited me in Shanghai, to perform a peculiar exhibition/presentation at Arthub Asia, re-enacting my Pokémon 2001 project using the latest Pokémon technology. Trapped into the half virtual/half real world that China is becoming, my work there end up with a 6000KLM train trip into Inner Mongolia Inner Mongolia . During this trip, I wrote "Three black chopsticks" and I start planning a quite-ambitious crazy large-scale operation in China. Stay tuned... “
“When in 2000, Gallery Analix (Geneva) asked me to do a new show with them, "Pokémon Stadium" had just launched for Nintendo 64. Pokémon's presence was for me some short of Manifesto and so I decide to make a Pokémon exhibition. I re-drawn and printed a number of Pokemon and then enlarged them using my Vibracolour on Super-glossy paper technique. In Geneva, Pokémon were met by the art world with total indifference, even embarrassment.
Pokemon Again
Who or better "what" was writing that "Manifesto" and what was stated on it wasn't completely clear back then. To me, it seamed written directly from "the computer world" and as with a few other "special" videogames like "Doom" & "SuperMario", its message was somehow existential. Now, 16 years later, in a world where our computer is no more kept "by the hand" -as with a PlayStation controller- neither it seats on our lap as with a laptop, now that its glued on our palm (a tablet) and has become a third-palm for us (instead of a third-eye), it all makes sense.. Pokémon and certain other videogame creatures were indeed a manifesto but it wasn't the generic "Computer World" promoting it, it was put forward instead by one of its more mysterious creations that was just coming of age: "Pokémon" was the Manifesto of the Animated Cartoon
“ In Spring 2015, invited to participate at the 9th Berlin Biennial the online magazine DIS was curating, I agreed meeting two guys from DIS in Bogotá but in the beginning of June, on the same day we had arrange to meet, I had to fly to Europe so our encounter never happened. We agreed to meet on Skype and discuss my participation but once I arrived in Greece I was catapulted into the Greek Summer of NO and I forgot everything else.. So the Berlin Biennial forgot me and I forgot it too until May 29th of 2016, just a few days before the opening of the exhibition that a friend told me he was going to Berlin. "I am part of this show"-I told him- "wait, I am not!".. Suddenly thinking I maybe missing something important, I looked online and noticed that the subject of this Biennial was exactly the issue that interests me the most: "our strange new life". So I decide to participate anyway... That same day, I sit on my computer and "sucked" everything from BB9's official website . Somehow magically learning how to modify it, I start re-creating the Berlin Biennial at Biennale.net by adding the content that -I believe- was missing.. I also start looking the Biennale online, at its […]” Instagram and Facebook and start remaking them at Instagram and Facebook . Following the tag #berlinbiennale , I discover that this exhibition was new Century's most interesting exhibition of its kind. But to become crystal-clear, my contribution was needed so I start "painting" it online, using my "Painting with Likes" technique that I invented on the spot. As I am convinced that "Shows-that-matter-should-never-end", I think I'll keep working on this show forever...
»Shows-that-matter-never-end«
“In Mexico City, "Tortuga" by Miltos Manetas and Nora Renaud at Aldo Chaparro Studio
"Tortuga" at Aldo Chapparo Studio, Mexico City
"Tortuga" at Aldo Chapparo Studio, Mexico City
Fac-simile of "Tortuga" at our house in Bogotá
"Tortuga" is a show I did with Nora Renaud in Mexico City«
»ÑEWPRESSIONISM started in 2014 in Italy after an invitation of Rome's Swiss Institute«
around...
At WOK in Bogota
At people's backs
At WOK in Bogota
One of the things we do in ÑEWPRESSIONISM is walking around with screens.. Here, I am walking around in Cartagena , Colombia
Walking with a screen in Cartagena
Walking with a screen in Cartagena
Walking with a screen in Cartagena
»Walking around with a screen...«
in Rome
Preparing...
6 October 2017 in Galleria Valentina Bonomo
»Μέμωρι«
" MAXXI dedicates a focus exhibition to the artist that between social networks, selfie, fashion and Google Street View explores the imaginary of the contemporary age. For his solo show at MAXXI, Miltos Manetas (Athens, 1964) brings together with large canvases a world populated by selfies, a reality observed by Facebook, pornographic images next to fashion, the streets of the whole world he recorded by Google. A painter, conceptual and theoretical artist, recognized at international level for his internet-based works and for having founded in 2009 the first Internet Pavilion at the Venice Biennale, Miltos tells about the emotions and the imaginary of our contemporary era." IT
at the Internet Paintings
Potato-stuff arrangement. Solutions for keeping computers, clothes, bags placing them in potato-bags. Inspired by the ideas and everyday modus operandi of @norarenaud
Neen..
Chinese explorers of the InternetPaintings at MAXXI
»Cercar a dipingere l´Internet, fare dal mondo dei schermi olio su tela, sarebbe di sicuro una cosa demente«
