Jon Rafman
Minor Daemon
180 The Strand, London
Through March 25, 2023

180 Studios presents the UK premiere of Minor Daemon (2021), a new film by Canadian artist and filmmaker Jon Rafman. Rafman’s feature film presents a computer-generated fever-dream universe, drawing on the landscapes of online worlds to examine interrelationship of technology and social consciousness. Set in a surreal dystopia, Minor Daemon, Vol. 1 tells the story of two young men who share an extraordinary gift for virtual reality gaming that could secure their freedom as they journey through a Hieronymus Bosch-like hellscape. Continuing where Rafman’s Dream Journal (2016-19) left off, the new film harnesses consumer animation technology to raise aesthetic questions about computer-generated moving image, projecting the anxieties of 21st century techno-society into 3D animation.

A Gateway to Possible Worlds
Group Exhibition
Centre Pompidou-Metz
Through April 10, 2023

The American writer Ray Bradbury said: "Science fiction is the art of the possible." Under the guise of anticipating the future, it speaks to us of the present. It is a laboratory of hypotheses that manipulate and extrapolate the repressive norms and dogmas of today's world, its ambitions, social afflictions, opportunities and perils. A Gateway To Possible Worlds exhibition brings together over 200 works from the late 1960s to the present day. Art & science fiction whisks visitors away to a 2300m² sci-fi world. It puts the spotlight on the bonds between imaginary worlds and our reality with the help of artists, authors, architects and film directors. It builds on current demands for 21st century utopias to spark debate, inspiration and a form of hope.

I'll be your Mirror: Art and the Digital Screen
Group Exhibition
Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth
Through April 30, 2023

Screens affect nearly every aspect of life today. Their pervasiveness has bred a 24/7 breaking news cycle, the looming corporate-sponsored virtual-reality “Metaverse,” unlimited accessibility and content, and an ease in how ideas and images are distributed, undoubtably shaping culture in profound ways. The Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth presents the landmark I’ll Be Your Mirror: Art and the Digital Screen, a thematic group exhibition that examines the screen’s vast impact on art from 1969 to the present. This exhibition surveys more than sixty works by fifty artists over the past five decades. The artists included examine screen culture through a broad range of media such as paintings, sculpture, video games, digital art, augmented reality, and video.

What a Wonderful World
Group Exhibition
MAXXI – Museo nazionale delle arti del XXI secolo, Rome
Through May 21, 2023

The title refers to today’s reality and hopes for tomorrow: through the visionary gaze of the artists, it evokes—sometimes in an ironic way—our time riddled with uncertainties and challenges and multiple human and technological possibilities of significant evolutions and drive towards the future. The works on display investigate the major issues of scientific and technological progress concerning the challenges of the contemporary era: the hybridisation between species and ecosystems, between real experiences and virtual interactions, between changes and grafts of identity and gender, in the reconfiguration of the social and political dynamics of our time.

A Leap into the Void. Art Beyond Matter
Group Exhibition
GAMeC, Galleria d'Arte Moderna e Contemporanea di Bergamo
Through May 28, 2023

Launched in 2018 with Black Hole. Art and Materiality from Informal to Invisible, and continued in 2021 with Nothing is Lost. Art and Matter in Transformation, A Leap into the Void concludes the Trilogy of Matter exploring the theme of the dematerialization, with a transversal tale that triggers a connection between those investigations into the void, initiated by the first movements of the historical avant-garde and developed by experimental groups post-World War II, the investigations into flux undertaken in the years of early computerization, and the use of new languages and simulated realities in the post-digital era.

Jon Rafman
𝐸𝒷𝓇𝒶𝒽 𝒦'𝒹𝒶𝒷𝓇𝒾
February 3–March 25, 2023
London

Monika Sprüth and Philomene Magers are pleased to announce Jon Rafman's first solo exhibition at the London gallery. In his latest works, the artist harnesses the creative potential of machine learning processes, continuing his long-standing practice of investigating the impact of technology on contemporary consciousness. The exhibition in London features both algorithmically generated paintings and video projections that explore new permutations of appropriated content, encompassing everything from fine art to mass marketing material.

Rafman incorporates the rich vocabulary and visuality of online worlds to develop poetic narratives that critically engage with the present, creating works that capture the tension between the indifferent eye of the machine and the human impulse to find meaning.

Jon Rafman
Counterfeit Poast
September 17–November 12, 2022
Berlin

In his new solo exhibition at Sprüth Magers, Berlin, Jon Rafman presents an immersive space with recent works which explore themes of nostalgia, youth, false memory, and the fragmentation of the individual. He harnesses the creative potential of machine learning and continues his long-standing practice of using the latest technology to bring its subterranean implications to the surface.

Jon Rafman
Dream Journal '16 -'17
September 16, 2017–January 20, 2018
Berlin

In Dream Journal 2016-2017, the latest iteration in his ongoing video series, Jon Rafman has created an immersive installation within the Berlin space. Rafman is recognized for an interdisciplinary practice that spans photography, sculpture, video, virtual reality, and installation. His work explores the impact of technology on contemporary consciousness, incorporating the rich vocabulary of online worlds to create poetic narratives that critically engage with the present.

Jon Rafman, Stan VanDerBeek
Jon Rafman / Stan VanDerBeek
curated by Johannes Fricke Waldthausen

January 20–March 4, 2017
Los Angeles

Memory comes to live through action in the present. We give life to memory through the present but when we do not give life to memory, it fades away. —J. Krishnamurti

This exhibition at Sprüth Magers, Los Angeles, introduces films and animations by Jon Rafman and Stan VanDerBeek, two artists from different generations, both exploring and working with associative imagery and their effect on the conditioned and the subconscious mind. Derived from the notion of screens and projections, their installations evolve around an immersive cinema and animation experience.

Dreaming Mirrors Dreaming Screens
Theodora Allen, Slater Bradley, Lucy Dodd, Lizzie Fitch / Ryan Trecartin, Andy Hope 1930, Oliver Laric, Pew Die Pie, Jon Rafman, Pamela Rosenkranz, Sara VanDerBeek, Stan VanDerBeek, Lesley Vance, Andro Wekua
curated by Johannes Fricke Waldthausen / GOODROOM
January 29–April 2, 2016
Berlin

Bringing together the practice of thirteen international artists, the exhibition Dreaming Mirrors Dreaming Screens appeals to the intuitive mind and creativity beyond referential thinking. Departing from the artists' production, it navigates through narratives in the realm of surrealist animation, abstraction and subjects of new materialism embracing the logic of the internet.