Painter, conceptual artist and theorist
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
Today the 4209 artist in the world going UP!
»The subject of my art is myself«
»el tema de mi trabajo soy yo«
»il tema de mio lavoro sono Io«
»Como se mejora una pintura? Mirándola!«
»Como programar la vida? Pintándola.«
working HARD on Social Media
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BORN In OCT 1964
1964
»Born in Athens«
1982
»Finished highschool / Decide to be an artist«
1985
»Moved to Rome«
1986
»Moved to Milan«
EARLY STUDENT-DAYS IN ITALY
In 1986 I made a drawing with a Sad Tree. I also made a 3D tree in Brera and I asked my girlfriend to perform on it.
1985, Rome
In 1985 I left Athens. The Art-school there wouldn't accept me. "Don't lose your time, you have no talent" one of the professors said- I think his name was Tetsis or Kokkinidis. Or maybe it was Yiannis Moralis who-back then at the eve of his carrier as professor - had send away Jannis Kounellis. He had said exactly the same to him 40 years earlier: "Don´t try, its useless, you have no talent."
Moved to Milan
“Fifteen notebooks with dots for children installed at the Cafe Pallas in Karditsa, Greece
1988, at a city in the Middle of Greece “Finishing artschool, I tried doing something that was far from all my contemporary art references, something that looked old..
near Cascina Gobba where I used to live “Finishing artschool I looked around me. I could see people everywhere, art people, artists, collectors, art-writers,photographers, gallerists.. I thought I should start from them, come to know them and at the same time make a work out of their faces. I didn´t really want to look at them so I impose myself to do exactly that: go met them and ask them to pose for a profile picture. Then I would cut their profile on a piece of plywood, curve their name on it and hang them alfabetically in the gallery. It was a kind of performance and at the same time, I was putting together some kind of primitive Facebook...
At a gallery in Milan and Athens and Hamburg
At a gallery in Milan and Athens and Hamburg
At a gallery in Milan and Athens and Hamburg “These were the years of Art Magazines and NeoGeo. Many same things.. In Greece an enthousiastic collector was buying everything. Together with his friend Jeffrey Deitch they were planning POST HUMAN, a very important show and they wanted to include my "51 Chairs and a few Assholes". I got inspired.. Dakis owned a big hotel, The Intercontinental. I remember reading somewhere about computers and projectors and although I had never seen one, I asked Dakis if I could make a new work to one of his many hotel rooms instead, using a computer. I would be travelling all around the globe and from time to time, I will be sending pictures by FedEx and someone would be loading them at the computer and projecting them in such a way that everytime that hotel´s door would be opened, a new fresh picture from the world would appear. It was a pro-Facebook fantasy but Dakis said he didn´t like computers and finally they never include me in POST HUMAN, Jeffrey replaced me with someone from NY who was doing something quite similar to my 51 Chairs.
“Demenza, 1990-1994. Each photo, edition of 3, Exhibited at FATTO IN ITALIA,
Contemporary Art from Italy, Centre d'Art Contemporain, Geneva,- ICA, London. Published at the catalog of TRAFFIC, CAPC
Museum of Contemporary Art, Bordeaux, FR “In Greek ancient comedy there are two dogs: Eirôn and Alazon.
Eiron was a clever underdog who by his wit repeatedly triumphs over the boastful character Alazon. According to Encyclopædia Britannica,
the Socratic irony of the Platonic dialogs derives from this comic origin. The Italian word "demenza",
(from the Latin dementia deriving from "demens"), translates in English to "insanity" and "lunacy".
I believe there exists a certain performative element of the world that can be expressed with a certain lunacy and insanity.
In that sense, "demenza" would be better translated as "irony", not the irony of our days but the Socratic irony,
an attitude that isn't just limited in the dissimulation of ignorance but becomes- as a matter of fact- a performance. “‘As Søren Kierkegaard explains on his doctoral thesis, "The Concept of Irony with Continual Reference to Socrates"
“Socrates not only used irony but was so dedicated to irony that he himself succumbed to it.” That was back then, when the world was fresh. In our days, such "insanity", not only is often performed
(especially in the arts & spectacle) but more importantly, it has become an element of our environment. We find "demenza" in our cities, in Milan, Athens, Berlin (where I took some of these pictures) and sometimes we also find it in the countryside “
EXTRAS: imaginary people I meet in books. This work is an infinite, constantly growing collection of descriptions of fictional characters. It exists in form of a database that is stored partly online, partly on a series of books in demand and
finally in the documentation attached to the "Collector's Item" that represents this artwork.
EXTRAS has to be performed by the latest laptop in the market with a computer voice chosen randomly.
"Mr Hyde was pale and dwarfish, he gave an impression of deformity without any nameable malformation, he had a displeasing smile, he spoke with a husky, whispering and somewhat broken voice"
I start collecting EXTRAS in 1993. My first "EXTRAS" performance was created for the group show "Het krijwitte kind" (SCHONHEIT MACHT SCHAMHAFT), Aschenbach Gallery, Amsterdam, curated by Paul Groot, staring Vanessa Beecroft.
The same year, I had my first one-man show in Italy at the historical Galleria Fac-Simile in Milan.( "COMPARSE", staring Vanessa Beecroft)
In Milan, Italy
In Milan, Italy
Suddenly, the computer enter my life. A dealer had sold a work and need to give me 2000 USD. I was at her house holding that money when a yuppie friend of hers arrived. He had a gray box with him and he said: " I am selling it, do you want it?"Yes, I am buying it, what is it? I asked"A computer" he said. Macintosh PowerBook". He turned it on and the thing light up, its screen black & white.
10 APPLE laptops (Powerbook) are turned into poets. Each "poet", is using a different computer simulated voice, reading-in loop- a poem written in the 18th Century . Exhibited at VHS, a show curated by Giacinto di Pietrantonio at Palazzina Liberty, Milan, Italy
In Naples, Italy
In Milan, Italy
In Naples, Italy
In Milan, Italy “ I looked on my computer screen.. “
I looked on the screen of my laptop and there were things written on it. There was a progress bar. A sign saying "Stop" and a sign saying "Continue". Another saying "Game Paused"...So I project them them and painted them..
In Bordeaux, France
In Derveni, Greece
Curated by Nicolas Bourriaud at CAPC, Musée d’art contemporain, Bordeaux “
Relational art or relational aesthetics is a mode or tendency in fine art practice originally observed and highlighted by French art critic Nicolas Bourriaud. Bourriaud defined the approach as "a set of artistic practices which take as their theoretical and practical point of departure the whole of human relations and their social context, rather than an independent and private space." The artist can be more accurately viewed as the "catalyst" in relational art, rather than being at the centre..
One of the first attempts to analyze and categorize art from the 1990s, the idea of Relational Art was developed by Nicolas Bourriaud in 1998 in his book Esthétique relationnelle (Relational Aesthetics).The term was first used in 1996, in the catalog for the exhibition Traffic curated by Bourriaud at CAPC musée d'art contemporain de Bordeaux. Traffic included the artists that Bourriaud would continue to refer to throughout the 1990s, such as Henry Bond, Vanessa Beecroft, Maurizio Cattelan, Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster, Liam Gillick, Christine Hill, Carsten Höller, Pierre Huyghe, Miltos Manetas, Jorge Pardo, Philippe Parreno, and Rirkrit Tiravanija.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relational_art
“ "Existence" in Milan, Italy “ "NEW ABSTRACTION" Paintings in New York, US
“During the Traffic exhibition I was invited for an one-man show by Xavier Douroux, Franck Gautherot and Eric Troncy. After seeing my "Sad Tree" at Bourriaud's exhibition, they wanted paintings! "What shall I paint?" I asked Vanessa Beecroft- my partner of those days.. She had no idea either but she was reading a book about Andy Warhol. "here it says that Warhol also didn't know what to paint so he asked a friend of his. "What do you like the most?" the friend asked. "Money"-said Warhol. "so just paint money".. At that moment, what I liked most was computers so I decide to start painting them...
“I start painting "Internet Paintings" in NYC
The InternetPaintings at MAXXI “I noticed there's a new point of view so I start painting "Point of View" in NYC “"My Floor" Paintings in NYC “I looked at my floor in NYC “"My Floor" Paintings in NYC “I start painting cables in NYC “painting cables in NYC “ "Peripherals Paintings", in NYC
Videogames aren't games but EVR: extended versions of reality.
Through videogames the process that started with the poems of Homer, Mahabharata and the Bible, continues..
“I start painting "Looking at Screens" in NYC
“at Sette, MIDI PYRÉNÉES… “Miltos Manetas's paintings take as subjects the Internet and the
power of computers, but use the features of physical objects situated
in a domestic interior to allow us access to them. The current success
of the market as a formal matrix among contemporary artists
has to do with a desire to make commercial relations concrete once
again, relations that the postmodern economy tends to make immaterial.
And yet this immateriality itself is a fiction, Henochsberg suggests,
insofar as what seems most abstract to us - high prices for
raw materials or energy, say - are in reality the object of arbitrary
negotiations. The work of art may thus consist of a formal arrangement that generates relationships between people, or be born of a social process;
I have described this phenomenon as "relational aesthetics," whose
main feature is to consider interhuman exchange an aesthetic object
in and of itself. (From Bourriaud-Postproduction)…
“I start painting "Screens" in NYC “"My Floor" Paintings in NYC
“In New York”
“Neen is a two-faced word.” in Chinatown...
“In Los Angeles”
“In 2001 I started iamgonnacopy.com In that page you could vote FOR or AGAINST intellectual property and copyright. Back then I wrote this text: The Coca Cola logo. A little poem. A well known painting by Picasso, a Pokemon picture, an article published in a website, a scientific discovery about DNA, a Beatles song, a piece of computer software. Think of your perception as a piece of land.
Once you will access any of the above, something is built over it. What you've seen, heard or learned becomes part of your self, literally your property.
There is no way to undo that information. You will have to work to put it in order, accept it or modify it in a way that fits your mental scheme. The more intelligent you are, the more you will have to work.
You are now a vehicle, a subway train wall and a cultural slave. You cannot go back in time and become a person who doesn't know how to write FedEx, but if you will actually decide to write it over your paintings, FedEx may sue you: that company holds a copyright and apparently owns that part of your head Where the FedEx logo is located.
There is a company based in Amsterdam which produces screen recognition software. Its' clients, can use their technology to help their newest systems communicate with their older computers.
A New York based company sued them on the basis that they keep a pattern on screen recognition.
Content (what the case above, what the old computers are saying), becomes a valuable for whoever will register a way to read it!
It promises double profits. A painter may become famous because the public saw his images. He will sell the physical object-the canvasses but he will still demand control over the public's imagination, through his copyright.
One of the most beautiful aspects of contemporary life is emulation. It makes from life an open project, a work in progress. But our freedom to emulate is limited.
This page is naive: it will not attempt to be scientific* because I didn't' study law.
But I know that what I mostly enjoy do is copying, even more than creating or even consuming.
I also know that none of the people who's work I respect, could live without copy.
Miltos Manetas, 2001…
jesusswimming.com, 2001 jacksonpollock.org, 2003 maninthedark.com, 2003 “ Because the Internet is not just another “media”as the Old Media insists, but mostly a “space”, similar to the American Continent immediately after it was discovered – anything that can be found on the Web has a physical presence. It occupies real estate. “Things” in the Internet exist in a specific location, while in magazines and on TV, contents are mostly bullets of information. Online they constitute a body: they are parts of a new genre. They are Web Entities. They get in touch and advertise their existence to each other. Similar to human beings, they will evaluate, criticize, “link” to each other. Ultimately, these Web Entities develop a “taste”. Bob Dobbs (a friend of McLuhan) said that “advertising is communication between machines”. He also suggested that machines came alive in 1967 and that “now they are in an angelic state”. “Advertising is communication between Angels” he said..
“I start painting "Women" in Los Angeles “"Women" in Los Angeles
“in Paris and New York and Los Angeles... “ in Paris... “
A show by Miltos Manetas at COSMIC GALLERY in Paris. Jan-Mar, 2004. The title of the show, is a homage to the book "Memoirs of the Devil" written by director Roger Vadim. Vadim was married to Bridgette Bardot, Jane Fonda and Catherine Deneuve. Entering the show: "Manifesto with 4 Women" , a remake of a work by Italian artist Alighiero Boetti. In 1969, Boetti made a poster about the artists of his generation. Each symbol on that poster was referring to a characteristic of each artist included. Collectors could buy the poster for a low price, however the "code" that would explain the piece was on sale for a very high price and if nobody purchased it before a certain date, it would be destroyed and the decryption would remain secret forever (and that's what happened). My collectors could buy the code of my poster too but it didn't happened either. So I hide the code somewhere online..
“I start painting "Point of View" in NYC “"Groups" Paintings in Paris “ never finished it..…
“in New York City…
In 2007- still suffering from a sense of loss for my great Existential Computing idea (which now seamed gone forever with only the video on YouTube left, the beginning of a conversation that nobody really seamed interested undertaking), I accepted giving a seminar at the Hayward Gallery in London, commissioned to me by a young curator.
Existential Computing started when Caroline Hancock and Paul Green asked me to do a project at the Hayward and they booked for me the Waterloo Sunset Pavilion. This location is unique, a capsule in the city designed by artist Dan Graham.
The first of December 2006 I had an idea- ideas often come to me with a tittle-this idea had a tittle too, "Existential Computing". But the day after after, I realized that the concept of Existential Computing had disappeared from my memory somehow, the only thing I knew about it at that point, was that it was different than anything else and therefore revolutionary, something very important to try and discover.
“Hi. This is Miltos Manetas” “I start painting ""Navigator" PAINTINGS" in France “ Are we lost? No, there are all those GPS with us..
“ in Virtual Worlds…
“ In Seoul…
“ in London… “ Suddenly I discovered bab so I start painting "Nature Paintings" “I start painting "Monochrome Paintings" in Rome and Bogotá “ Monochromes are the paintings of paintings.. Biennale
For the first edition of the Internet Pavilion, Manetas and Aman invited to Venice a number of people involved with the activist website ThePirateBay.org to inaugurate the „Embassy of Piracy“. Just a few hours after the press-statement of Padiglione Internet was released, the administration of the Venice Biennial began receiving calls from the Berlusconi Government ordering from them to cancel the invitation of ThePirateBay.
For the first edition of the Internet Pavilion, Manetas and Aman, decide to invite a number of people involved with the activist website ThePirateBay.org to come in Venice and inaugurate the Embassy of Piracy. But just a few hours after the press statement of PadiglioneInternet was released, the administration of the Venice Biennial start receiving calls from the Berlusconi government asking them to cancel the invitation of ThePirateBay. “Paintings with the PirateBay.org boat painted on them and a hard drive from where one can "grab" pirated files.. “PIRACY MANIFESTO & STICKER designed by Experimental Jetset, commissioned by MAXXI National Museum of Art of the 21st Century in Rome for its inaugural exhibition in June 2010
“ "Selfies Paintings" in Bogotá, Colombia “ As we all start looking ourselves mirrored on the palms of ourselves where now a computer screen is glued, I start painting "Selfie Paintings" in Bogotá. I didn't paint any faces on them-that would be banal.. just the "mirrors"...
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 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. “ at Arthub Asia
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
“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. “
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...
“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 around...
At WOK in Bogota
At people's backs
At WOK in Bogota around...
Walking with a screen in Cartagena
Walking with a screen in Cartagena
Walking with a screen in Cartagena in Rome
Preparing...
6 October 2017 in Galleria Valentina Bonomo MAXXI, Rome, is showing the works of conceptual artist Miltos Manetas in an exhibition titled “Internet Paintings,” on view at the museum through May 20, 2018. “Italian Painting,” a work from 2000” part of the museum’s permanent collection is also part of the show.
at the Internet Paintings
Potato-stuff arrangment. 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
3D tree in Brera
an early solo show
1998, "Kafka Birds"
Schoolbooks
where my mother was born
"Plywood Vases": Vehicles of Identity
1989:"Identity Vases"
on the highway

Two Vases

near Cascina Gobba
My First Gallery One-Man Show
1991, "PERFORMANCE"
1991, "PERFORMANCE"
1991, "PERFORMANCE"
»From 1990, I start collecting art-people. «
»Taking a profile picture from them«
»cutting their figure on a piece of plywood and tracing their name under«
Succesfully Contemporary
"Psicofarmaci"
Different Opinion
1991: "51 Chairs..."
»
At 1990 I founded Different Opinion to allow to artists start producing artworks that were different from what each of us usually does«
The concept of "Demenza"
"Demenza"
DEMENZA IN NAPLES

Lunacy, Insanity, Socratic Irony
»Demenza«
The Concept of Irony with Continual Reference to Socrates
1993, EXTRAS,"THE BOOK OF OTHERS"
Book of Others
on Facebook
Mr Hyde was pale
Extraordinary looking man
Two men dressed the same
Method in his madness
1992, "COLLEGAMENTI"
Dedicated to William Gibson's "Neuromancer"
Installation "Collegamenti"
Performance "Collegamenti"
»A wall was prepared with stereo sockets mounted on it (I knew nothing about computers yet)«
» A number of "collegamenti" pencil-drawings were drawn directly onto the wall. On the surface of an over-scaled table, some plugs were left «
1994, My First Computer: Powerbook
A PowerBook
10 British Poets
Palazzina Liberty
COMPUTER-DESKTOP READYMADE
1995
"Output 1.0" & "Whoops!"
Computer-Desktop Readymade
1994, "Soft Driller"
Soft Driller
1995, First oil on canvas Paintings
"Written in Computers" Paintings
1995

1995

1995

ZOOM TO "Written in Computers" Paintings
THE "Sad Tree"
Sad Tree
Sad Tree Polaroid
TRAFFIC Introduction to Relational Aesthetics
1996, Relational Aesthetics
RELATIONAL AESTHETICS
Relational art - Wikipedia
ZOOM TO Relational Aestetics
"EXISTENCE" Paintings
1995

1995

ZOOM TO "Existence" Paintings
"Patients" PAINTINGS
1996

1997

1998

ZOOM TO "PATIENTS" paintings
in 1996 I begun Painting...
"New Abstraction" Paintings
"New Abstraction"
1996

1996

ZOOM TO "New Abstraction" paintings
PORTRAITS OF DIGITAL MACHINES
QuickTake & PowerBook
1996

1996

ZOOM TO "Portraits of Digital Machines" paintings
ZOOM TO ALL MANETAS PAINTINGS
And because there was already INTERNET ...
in 1997, "INTERNET PAINTINGS"
1997

and later in 2002


and in 2018
ZOOM TO the Internet Paintings
That same year...
"Point of View" Paintings
1997

and in 1998..

and in 1999..

ZOOM TO "Point of View" Paintings
And looking at my floor..
"My Floor" Paintings
1997

1997

1997

ZOOM TO "My Floor" Paintings
And then...
"CABLES" Paintings
1997

and in 1998..

and in 2008..

ZOOM TO CABLE PAINTINGS
And "Peripherals" Paintings
ZOOM TO ALL MANETAS PAINTINGS
1997

1997

1997

ZOOM TO "Peripherals" paintings
IN 1996, FIRST VIDEO FROM VIDEOGAMES: "MIRACLE"
After "Hornet 18" for Apple
First shown at the exhibition "Joint Ventures"
A video after videogames
ZOOM TO "Miracle" video
THE BEGINNING OF MACHINIMA
BEGINNING OF MACHINIMA
»I locate the roots of this medium in early artistic experimentations such as Miltos Manetas's "Videos After Videogames"
After Videogames Manifesto
ZOOM TO Machinima
"Videos after Videogames"
Flames
1997
SuperMario Sleeping
1997
King Kong after P.J
2006
ZOOM TO Videos After Videogames
"Prints after Videogames"
after "Tomb Rider"
1996
after "Zelda"
1997
after "SuperMario"
1999
ZOOM TO Prints After Videogames
"Playing Videogames" PAINTINGS
1997
1998
1999
ZOOM TO "Playing Videogames" Paintings
"LOOKING AT COMPUTER SCREENS"
Everybody now Looking at Screens...
1998

and in 1999...

and in 2005

ZOOM TO Looking at Computer Screens Paintings
Working in Virtual Worlds"
Chelsea in Active Worlds
floating studio
Interview at my floating studio
»
Virtual Worlds
«
»
Chelsea «
ZOOM TO Virtual Worlds
And in France...
1999,
LE CAPITAL curated by Nicolas Bourriaud
LE CAPITAL
LE CAPITAL
ZOOM TO "LE CAPITAL" EXHIBITION
And from 2000..
"Screen" Paintings
2000

2010

2010

ZOOM TO "Screens" Paintings
MURAKAMI-MANETAS
MURAKAMI-MANETAS
»Takashi Murakami, the founder of Superflat and Miltos Manetas, the founder of Neen,«
» met in Italy on February 2000 for an exhibition at the Pinksummer Gallery in Genova «
»On Friday February 18th, 2000 «
» gave a lecture together at the Art School in Milan, (Accademia di Brera)«
ZOOM TO MURAKAMI-MANETAS EXHIBITION
THE BIRTH OF NEEN
Gagosian gallery
Neen is a
»computing is to NEEN what fantasy is to Surrealism«
»and freedom to Communism«
»it creates the context but it can also be postponed«
ZOOM TO THE NEEN
And in Los Angeles...
electronicOrphanage
"In Los Angeles"
MACROeo in Rome
eo in Siena
ZOOM TO THE ELECTRONICORPHANAGE
IAMGONNACOPY
Logo on Mai's ass
Manifesto and Sticker
ZOOM TO IAMGONNACOPY
"OUR WEBSITES IS THE ART OF OUR DAYS"
jesusswimming.com
jacksonpollock.org
maninthedark.com
ZOOM TO Websites
Websites are today’s most radical and important art objects
"WHITNEY BIENNIAL DOT COM"
WHITNEYBIENNIAL
ZOOM TO WHITNEYBIENNIAL.COM
»www.whitneybiennial.com«
»2002«
And from 2000...
"Women" Paintings
2002

2003: "LONG MAI"

2003: "LONG MAI"

ZOOM TO "Women" Paintings
"INTERNET PAINTINGS CONTINUES..."
Started in 2002
Google Maps
2002


ZOOM TO Internet Paintings
2003,
What happened in 2003? I was kind of lost...
Living in Paris..
Memoirs of the Devil
Memoirs of the Devil
Memoirs of the Devil
ZOOM TO Memoirs of the Devil
And in 2005
"Groups" Paintings
2005

ZOOM TO "Groups" Paintings
2005,
starting a book..
Marx&Marinetti&Miltos&Manetas
Marx & Marinetti
& Miltos & Manetas
ZOOM TO Marx&Marinetti&Miltos&Manetas
and in USA..
"DOGS & CABLES"
At Yvon Lambert
Gallery
ZOOM TO the"dogs and Cables" exhibition
Workshop at the Hayward Gallery in London
workshop-searching for Existential Computing at the Hayward Gallery in London
"What's the subject of your workshop?" She asked. "Existential Computing"- I said- "A subject that I know nothing about..."
a total Neen Eclipse
But unfortunately, there’s something wrong with it, something went wrong with its construction, or maybe it was the artist’s intention.
So I asked the curators to bring a cat there, because a cat may have been able to fix the Pavilion’s problems. But Museums, every-time I ask for animals they refuse, they give me computers instead and videos and digital cameras which is not the same at all, because cats know how to record events in a way that is not digital but its not analogue either. Cats collect quantum facts from multiple realities. I think cats are Universal Reporters.
Existential computing however, started on Feb 3. Some people came and begun working like crazy, doing I don’t know what. Working on their machines, working, working.. Others came to visit.. As one of them said later, “ I learned about things I knew already but I wasn’t sure they actually exist”.
And finally there was a party and speaking about data that meet each other beautifully, while I was showing Rafael Rozendaal’s futurephysics.com where planets attract each other, a total lunar eclipse started and went on for an hour and fourteen minutes.
»Are you expressing a new version of troubleshooting «
»a 21st century idea of unhappiness?«
»What a beautiful thing that would be«
»Malcolm asked me straight away after his arrival at the Hayward«
»what a way to put it I said..«
»Yes, I do!«
ZOOM TO Existential Computing
2006,
Existential Computing
"A great idea"
on YouTube..
“This is a conversation. Its between me and you. At any point, when you have something to say, please pause this video and record your message. Then post it on YouTube and send me the link so I can reply to you”.
“I want to give a theme to our conversation. That theme is our new life. Its a complex theme, it has to do with our intelligent machines. That’s what I call Existential Computing, it has to do with our perception of reality”.
“There’s new information today about reality. According to many scientists, we live in a Multiverse. There are many versions of ourself, each of them inhabiting a parallel word. Also, according to a few but quite respected scientists, time doesn’t flow. Everything that is possible, has already happened somewhere and what we perceive as change, its some kind of illusion”.
“Until yesterday, such ideas were esoteric but today, it is the observation of the World that tell us so. Therefore, we should start thinking differently, start living our life differently. Maybe we need to modify our language, maybe we need new words to say to ourself that what’s now happening, is also not happening. That there is an instant person of me who is recording this message and there is another who doesn’t. And that I am both of them and many other too”.
“Maybe your questions- or my answers- will be inspiring. Remember, that in another universe, its YOU the one who initiated this conversation”.
ZOOM TO Existential Computing
in 2007 we had GPS...
"Navigator" PAINTINGS

And in 2010...

ZOOM TO "Navigator" Paintings
2007, in London
The Internet Paintings
Continuing them...
ZOOM TO the Internet Paintings
and online...
SECOND LIFE
MANETAS DESERT in SECOND LIFE
BURNING my paintings at the desert
ZOOM TO MANETAS DESERT IN SECOND LIFE
in Seoul
2008,
The Cable-Rug
Cable-Rug
Cable-Rug
And in the UK..
ALTERMODERN MANIFESTO
Bourriaud
AT TATE BRITAIN
ZOOM TO ALTERMODERN MANIFESTO AT TATE BRITAIN
"Nature" PAINTINGS
2009


2009

2009

ZOOM TO "Nature Paintings"
AND
2009

2013

2013

ZOOM TO "Monochrome Paintings"
53th BIENNALE DI VENEZIA
"The Embassy of Piracy"
Jan&Daniel&Miltos
Pirates of the Internet
"We are Pirates of the Internet
Pirates of the World Wide Web
Nothing that can stop us now
We are here to stay..."
ZOOM TO EMBASSY OF PIRACY
And "Pirate Paintings"...
2009

2009

2009

ZOOM TO "Pirate Paintings"
PIRACY MANIFESTO & STICKER
At MAXXI
Reading the Manifesto
The Manifesto in 2009
ZOOM TO PIRACY MANIFESTO
Started Painting...
"Selfie" PAINTINGS
2010

2010

2010

ZOOM TO "Selfie" Paintings
Falling in Conero
Falling in Conero
Falling in Conero
ZOOM TO Falling in Conero
Cucchi Ospita Manetas
ENZO CUCCHI OSPITA MILTOS MANETAS
CUCCHI AND MANETAS
ZOOM TO ENZO CUCCHI OSPITA MILTOS MANETAS
2010,
BlackBerry Paintings
I began painting..
Painting my shadow
ZOOM TO BlackBerry Paintings in USA
ZOOM TO BlackBerry Paintings in Amazonas
and in Milan...
METASCREEN
In Milan
in a gallery that is a monitor
ZOOM TO METASCREEN
while in Venice...
54th BIENNALE DI VENEZIA
"BYOB-ISLAND OF THE NET"
Rafael Rozendaal's
ZOOM the II Internet Pavilion
Started Painting...
"FOURFORTYFOUR" PAINTINGS
Fourfortyfour Paintings
4:44 Paintings
2012

2014

ZOOM TO FourFortyFour Paintings
in Rome..
Studio in Rome
Preparing a painting
ZOOM TO studio in Rome
And from 2012...
"Google Nature" Paintings
2012

2012

ZOOM TO "Google Nature" Paintings
2012,
OVEREALITY
Preparing a painting
Overeality
ZOOM TO OVEREALITY
"The Unconnected"
2013

2013

ZOOM TO "Unconnected" Paintings
"Parallel Portraits"

ZOOM TO "Little Screens" Paintings
"Self-portraits"
2013

2013

20105

ZOOM TO "Self-Portraits" Paintings
"Little Screen" Paintings
"Alphas"

"Alphas"

"New Groups" Paintings
2013

2013

ZOOM TO "New Groups" Paintings
"On Skype" Paintings
2013

2013

2013

ZOOM TO Skype Paintings
THE ARRIVAL OF MEDIOSUD
Day without God
MedioSud in my mind
ZOOM TO MEDIOSUD
Bipolar Paintings
Camilo & Benjamin
Alpha & Catalina
ZOOM TO "Looking at Screens Paintings"
"LOOKING AT SCREENS"
Women Looking...
M&A looking at screen
ZOOM TO "Looking at Screens Paintings"
55th BIENNALE DI VENEZIA
"THE UNCONNECTED"
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.
Curated by
Dos Francescos
ZOOM TO INTERNET PAVILION
"TREES ON SKYPE"
TREES ON SKYPE
TREES ON SKYPE
ZOOM TO Trees on Skype
2014, in Italy:
ÑEWPRESSIONISM
ÑEWPRESSIONISM
Ñ in Purple
ZOOM TO ÑEWPRESSIONISM
56th BIENNALE DI VENEZIA
"LOOKING AT THE INTERNET"
LOOKING AT...
LOOKING at the Internet (in Venice with Nora Renaud
Where is Venice? Is it somewhere online? What happens there?)
@ Ai Wei Wei
ZOOM to Before Togetherness
Cropped Cables
Cables
Cropped Cables
ZOOM TO Cropped Cables
Continuing the 444 PAINTINGS
Fourfortyfour Paintings
4:44 Paintings
2016

ZOOM TO FOURFORTUFOUR PAINTINGS
"Abstract Screens" in Munich
Abstract Screens
Abstract Screens
ZOOM TO Abstract Screens
TALLER 4ROJO In COLOMBIA, "AHORA!" (Now)
Rojo y mas Rojo
Taller 4 Rojo now
ZOOM TO TALLER 4 ROJO
in Milan, MY "TIMELINE"
Preparing the show
Showing...
ZOOM TO Showing my Timeline
MYSTICAL STAIRCASE
Mystical and staircase
Curated by Francesco Urbano Ragazzi
ZOOM TO Mystical Staircase
"Dried Webpages"
WEB

BECOMES

WOOD

ZOOM TO Dried Webpages at the Internet Taller
"05:05" show in Sabina, Italy
5 km circa
05.05 AM
paying tribute
ZOOM TO 05:05
in China "Pokémon Again"
15 years later
In Shanghai..
in Geneva
15 years earlier
ZOOM TO Pokémon Again
9th Berlin Biennial
9th Berlin Biennial
Painting with Likes
Painting on Instagram
Redoing...
»Shows-that-matter-never-end«
ZOOM TO THE 9TH BERLIN BIENNALE
"TORTUGA" WITH NORA RENAUD IN MEXICO CITY
At Aldo's
in Mexico City
and in Bogotá...
"Tortuga" is a show I did with Nora Renaud in Mexico City«
EXHIBITING MY PAINTINGS IN STRANGE PLACES
At a restaurant
At people's backs
A friend's house..
Walking with Screens
Walking...
Walking...
Walking...
»Walking around with a screen...«
Continuing ÑEWPRESSIONISM in America Latina
"Neonwater"
ZOOM TO ÑEWPRESSIONISM 2016-17
»ÑEWPRESSIONISM started in 2014 in Italy after an invitation of Rome's Swiss Institute«
2017, "ΜEμωρι" Solo show
Preparing the show
"Μέμωρι"
"Μέμωρι" book
»Μέμωρι«
2018, "Internet Paintings", Solo show at MAXXI
Collegamenti
An interview
Exhibition view
NEEN
Chinese explorers
»Cercar a dipingere l´Internet, fare dal mondo dei schermi olio su tela, sarebbe di sicuro una cosa demente«






