RAFAËL ROZENDAAL
Rafaël Rozendaal (1980) is a Dutch-Brazilian artist who currently lives in New York. His work is regularly exhibited, not only in Europe and the U.S. but also in Asia and South America. He has worked with institutions such as the Museum of Modern Art (New York), Centre Pompidou, Kunstverein Frankfurt, Seoul Art Fair, Media Art Institute and the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam. He is a regular speaker on digital art topics and his work is discussed in international publications such as Time Magazine, Wall Street Journal, Flash Art and Interview. Rozendaal is also the founder of the exhibition concept Bring Your Own Beamer, an evening where artists bring their own projectors to display their digital work. Since 2010 there have been over 100 BYOB exhibitions, including one at the Venice Biennale.
Rozendaal’s artistic practice comprises animations, websites, NFTs, installations, tapestries, prints and writing. His work takes shape through a range of transformations – from movement into abstraction, from virtual into physical space, and from website and NFTs to print –with all of them informing each other. All of his works have one thing in common: they stem from a fascination with moving images and interactivity in its most basic form. Although Rozendaal is best known for his artworks in the form of websites and NFTs he sees no hierarchy between his digital and physical works: ‘The experience that you have when you are at home using Abstract Browsing on your computer is as authentic as viewing one of the tapestries in a gallery. From my point of view: the Internet is like a waterfall, an exhibition more like an aquarium’.
The artist’s work has been exhibited, amongst others, at the following venues: Museum of Modern art New York (USA), Whitney Museum of American Art, New York (USA), Centre Pompidou, Paris (FR), Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam (NL), Folkwang Museum (DE), Kunstverein Frankfurt, (DE), Kawasaki City Museum,Kawasaki (JP), New Museum, New York (NY, USA), Nam June Paik Art Center Seoul (KOR), Hammer Museum Los Angeles (USA), Kunsthal Rotterdam (NL), MOTI Museum Breda (NL), Times Square Midnight Moments New York (NY, USA), Telfair Museum, Savannah (GA, USA), Centre d’Art Bastille, Grenoble (FR), With Project Space, New York (NY, USA) and Towada Art Center (JP).
Rafaël Rozendaal
Light: Rafaël Rozendaal, 2024 - 2025
Monumental installation at MoMA, New York
Light (2024) at MoMA
MoMA’s expansive, high-resolution screen—measuring over 7 meters high and wide—features a curated selection of 25 of Rozendaal’s signature colorful and immersive digital works, each sampled for two to three minutes. Each work originates as a storyboard sketched on paper, which is then translated into code through a program that occupies only a few kilobytes (the whole exhibition is only ca 2 MB). The resulting final form is an autonomous website powered by that algorithm, generating the animation in real time. This American museum solo debut follows Rozendaal’s recent first major European museum solo exhibition at the Folkwang Museum (Essen, Germany) in 2023.
Rozendaal initially made his name as an internet artist, pioneering the sale of websites through his “art websites sales contract,” which is often regarded as a precursor to NFTs. These early websites attracted over 60 million unique visitors a year. Since 2021, Rozendaal achieved considerable success with his blockchain works (NFTs). Over the past decade, Rafaël Rozendaal has also gained significant recognition for his prints, tapestries, and other art objects that translate the digital into the physical realm. Last year, for the first time in his career, Rozendaal rented a studio (previously, he needed nothing more than a laptop) and started painting. He arrived at a language for painting shaped by his background as a digital artist, bringing a fresh and unconventional approach to the traditional medium. His first solo exhibition of paintings, Manual, occurred at Upstream Gallery in Amsterdam from September to October 2024.
Rozendaal is the third artist to receive a solo presentation on MoMA’s digital wall, following notable exhibitions by Refik Anadol and Leslie Thornton. Light: Rafaël Rozendaal is organized by Paola Antonelli, Senior Curator, Department of Architecture and Design, and Director, Research and Development, and Amanda Forment, Curatorial Assistant, Department of Architecture and Design.
MoMA’s video wall, known as The Hyundai Card Digital Wall, highlights work by prominent new media artists and underscores MoMA’s longstanding commitment to supporting artists experimenting with emerging technologies.
Light: Rafaël Rozendaal, 2024-2025
Monumental installation at MoMA, New York
(Selection of websites and NFTs for:) Light: Rafaël Rozendaal, 2024-2025 Monumental installation at MoMA, New York
Solo Color, Code, Communication at Museum Folkwang Essen (2023)
Museum Folkwang brought digital art to the museum in Rafaël Rozendaal’s monographic solo exhibition. In his NFT works, Rozendaal explores, among other aspects, pioneers and compositional techniques in 20th-century art. Color, Code, Communication is the first monographic NFT exhibition of the New York-based artist in a European museum and was accompanied by an international symposium on NFT art.
A highlight of the exhibition was the walk-through presentation of 81 Horizons (2021) in the museum’s large exhibition hall. The 81-part NFT series was presented over 1,000 square metres as an immersive video installation, in which our visual experience on screens and in browser windows is juxtaposed with contemplative strolling in an exhibition situation.
Rozendaal plays with the art historical topos of the horizon line – for his abstractions, he compresses two monochrome colour fields and a line each into files of around 2 KB that are permanently inscribed in the blockchain. The total filesize of the entire exhibition was under 400 KB. By bringing the NFT series into the museum space, the public was able to physically experience it.
NFT project 81 Horizons installation, 2023 Solo exhibition Color, Code, Communication at Museum Folkwang, Essen
Hommage, 2022
Solo exhibition Color, Code, Communication Museum Folkwang, Essen
Solo exhibition Color, Code, Communication Museum Folkwang, Essen
Moment, 2015 Times Square, New York
Random Fear with Mirrors, 2019
Installed at Kunsthal, Rotterdam
The world’s biggest kiss (HD video), 2012
Seoul Square
Double Pressure, 2019
Centraal Museum, Utrecht
Objects, 2019
Upstream Gallery, Amsterdam
Freedom of Movement, 2018
Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam
Websites
Rafaël Rozendaal has made a name with his websites as unique artworks since 2001. Websites have distinctive qualities that no other art medium has: they are publicly accessible, unique “objects” that exists all over the world at the same time. Unlike video, these websites have no beginning or end. They are infinitely generated via algorithms. These sites constantly create new abstract formations, which produce chance juxtapositions when displayed next to each other. By showing the same website as for instances on four screens, the unpredictability of the algorithm is felt by the viewer. Rozendaal compares his websites to waterfalls: they are always doing the same thing, but they never repeat themselves. The abstract websites provide an almost meditative or hypnotic experience. They function as endpoints on the web. Not places to endlessly scroll but to endlessly stare. They provide a moment of stillness in the chaos that is the web.
Paintings
Rozendaal has been highly successful with his digital artworks, as well as his prints, tapestries, and other art objects that translate the digital into the physical world. His pioneering status was cemented with his first major solo museum exhibition at the Folkwang Museum in Essen in 2023. However, Rozendaal’s artistic journey is unpredictable and unconventional. Last year, for the first time in his career of 25 years, Rozendaal rented a studio (previously, he needed nothing more than a laptop) and started painting. Where his earlier works were produced from intensive collaborations with experts in fields such as coding, weaving, or printing, now he is working “manually” for the first time— using his hands, acrylic paint, and canvas. For the artist, painting brings a new impetus to his practice. He started out of curiosity and, more importantly, fun – for him, “the most honest indicator of a path to take.” Working by hand results in a less controlled approach compared to his earlier works, which compels him to embrace accidents and enjoy the process.
It seems like an unusual choice for one of the world’s most renowned digital artists. However, despite the new medium, his signature style is unmistakable, and his visual language is rooted in the digital world. The paintings explore the tension between abstraction and figuration, something he calls “minimal figuration”. How few lines are needed to depict a landscape or a glass of water? This abstraction of everyday subjects and scenes runs like a thread through Rozendaal’s oeuvre and is reminiscent of early video games, leaving the viewer with a sense of suggested movement, as if the depicted places are waiting for something to happen in them.
taboo
don’t make art on the internet, that will never work don’t show websites in museums, they belong online don’t make gallery objects, you’re a web artist don’t write poetry, you’re not a poet don’t use blockchain, that’s for investors don’t paint, that’s for painters
Rafaël Rozendaal
24 02 12 (Red Green Chair), 2024
Acrylic on canvas
170 x 100 cm
Rafaël Rozendaal
24 01 14 (Glass of Water), 2024
Acrylic on canvas
168 x 105 cm
Rafaël Rozendaal 24 04 24 (Light Blue Window), 2024
Acrylic on canvas
170 x 136 cm
24 02 27 (Grey Window),
24 03 23 (Envelope), 2024
Acrylic on canvas
105 x 168 cm
Rafaël Rozendaal
Abstract Browsing Tapestries
In 2014, Rozendaal developed the plug-in Abstract Browsing. Its code alters information from websites: images, advertisements and text fields are transformed into brightly colored geometric elements. This way, the narrative of the Internet makes room for an abstract composition that reveals the underlying structure of websites.
Rozendaal collects thousands of screenshots of Abstract Browsing generated compositions. A number of these are then selected by him to be produced as tapestry.
Rozendaal: ‘I look for compositions that are the least picturesque. Painting is about a concentrated view, about beauty rather than utility. Websites are built exactly the opposite: developers are constantly looking for new structures that entice users to click somewhere, generating the highest advertisement revenue. Websites are created from necessity and efficiency, not beauty. I select compositions that are a bit awkward, unlike classic abstract painting that is about tranquility and contemplation.’
Abstract Browsing, 2016
tapestry / textile (acrylic wool)
86 x 144 cm
Complex Computational Compositions, 2016
Upstream Gallery, Amsterdam
Abstract Browsing, 2016
Los Angeles
Abstract Browsing, 2016
Los Angeles
Abstract Browsing + Into TIme (2024)
Between Pixel and Pigment at Kunsthalle Bielefeld
Abstract Browsing + Into TIme (2024)
Between Pixel and Pigment at Kunsthalle Bielefeld
Lenticular Paintings | Into Time
For Rozendaal, the Lenticular paintings are a way of translating his digital work into the physical world. He started making these ‘Lenticular Paintings’ in 2013. The technique of these works are known mostly from postcards where the image moves when you tilt the card. The quality of these prints is significantly higher than these postcards, which produces a profound effect with multi-layer colours and a canvas that seems to move when you walk past it. In this way the physical object can refer to the digital platorm: there is movement and a way of interaction between the canvas and the onlooker, also the number of compositions is endless.
Almost Nothing, 2014
Los Angeles
Near Next
Rozendaal has been translating his digital work into physical art objects. This has for instance resulted in a large body of work that makes use of the lenticular technique, providing a way to create a moving image without the use of electricity. In close collaboration with the TextielMuseum Tilburg, Rozendaal has now developed a new weaving structure that is based on this same principle.
The Near Next tapestries are mechanically woven from linen, and evoke a sense of movement when the viewer walks past it. Although the tapestries consist of only two opposing colors, the physical irregularity of the material creates a very lively and organic image. This is reinforced by the use of linen, which is used as the basis of most paintings. In these weavings, the linen is saturated with pigments. Even though there is no paint applied on the surface, the lenticular linen still gives the works a painterly character. The weavings behave in fact as analog screens with a very simple algorithm: one color or another, A or B, 1 or 0. They deal with interactivity in the most basic form: the image changes along with the point of view of the observer.
Near Next, 2018 lenticular tapestry, linen
144 x 200 cm
Discrete
Objects, 2019
Upstream Gallery, Amsterdam
Rozendaal’s Haiku are short poems inspired by the Japanese tradition. The compact poems range in subject matter from touching existential musings on the complexities of the digital age to the mundane pleasure of ignoring emails or getting paid on time. Rozendaal sees similarities between Haiku and computational processes: each time the haiku is read, a moment happens, the algorithm runs, the three lines of code start a process in the mind of the reader.
Haiku
Nervous, 2019
Postmasters Gallery, Rome
Mechanical Paintings
With his Mechanical Paintings, Rozendaal explores yet another way of capturing the virtual into the physical world. Mechanical Paintings consists of digital drawings turned into tangible, mechanical, paintings made through the application of enamel on steel. The traditional craftsmanship of enamelling on steel builds on Rozendaal’s previous takes on transitioning his online work to the material world. One may quickly recall the artist’s tapestry works, or his lenticulars.
In the paintings, Rozendaal explores the abstraction of everyday objects and scenes through the lens of the early internet’s innocence and optimism, whereby positioning the internet as a place waiting to be discovered, rather than one used as a political or commercial tool. The Mechanical Paintings additionally play with the beauty and perspective of early video games. The abstraction of the images leaves the viewer with the suggestion, or even creation, of movement, as though the places represented are waiting on something to happen in them. The viewer is left captivated with anticipation, much like before the start of a videogame, or as the artist puts it – ‘the suggestion of movement is actually more interesting than animating it’. The works are somewhere between digital and physical, between movement and still, between abstract and figurative.
Mechanical Paintings, 2021
Upstream Gallery, Amsterdam
Mechanical Paintings, 2021
Upstream Gallery, Amsterdam
Mechanical Panting 21 02 10 (Flat Road), 2021
Rafaël Rozendaal
Enamel
80 x 120 cm
Mechanical Painting 20 11 01 (Beach), 2021
80 x 120 cm
Rafaël Rozendaal
Enamel
With Extra Nervous, a line of plexi-glass works, Rozendaal continues his investigation in the transition from movement into abstraction and from virtual into physical space. In what can be considered the shortest path from digital to physical, the compositions Rozendaal created are coded to be laser-cut by a computer out of colored plexiglass. They translate an exact, digital line into the physical world, like a mechanical way of drawing.The mirroring colors refer to the experience of color in the digital world: smooth, without texture, seen through the glass of a screen. Through the use of mirrors, there’s also a sense of movement in the works. They deal with interactivity in the most basic form: the image changes along with the point of view of the observer.
Extra Nervous
Rafaël Rozendaal
Extra Nervous 23 09 08 (Big Rock), 2023
Mirrored plexiglass in wooden frame
154 x 128 cm
*photo without the mirror effect
Extra Nervous 20 05 03, 2020
Plexiglass in wooden frame
26 x 40 cm
Rafaël Rozendaal
Reading & Listening
Find the artist’s website here
Rafaël Rozendaal, Notes on Abstract Browsing, see here.
Three Star Books, Home Alone, see here.
Monography Everything, Always, Everywhere (2017), here
Spheres Projects, Rafaël Rozendaal: Haiku (2018), see here.
Artist talk, Haus der elektronischen Künste Basel, see here.
It’s Nice That article, see here
Rafaël Rozendaal on his installation Stereo (2019) at exhibition Breekbaar here.
Bring Your Own Beamer at Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam impression here
Rafaël Rozendaal NFT (2021-2022) walkthrough here.
See 81 Horizons publication (2023) here
Upstream Gallery
Upstream Gallery, established in 2003, has quickly gained a credible international reputation among collectors, art institutions and critics, and is a perfect example of Amsterdam’s internationally renowned contribution to contemporary art. With a focus on radical, engaged, conceptual and post-internet art Upstream Gallery brings pioneering and critical work from artists from the Netherlands and abroad.
Since September 2015 Upstream is situated in a monumental 17th-century city palace in Amsterdam's city center. The ground floor consists of two exhibition spaces, office space and a private-viewing room which is used as an extended exhibition space and private showroom. The iconic grand canal house, known as the Poppenhuis ('Poppen House'), was built by renowned architect Philips Vingboons in 1642 and is one of his major works. With its sleek, classical facade it draws much attention among the many step-gables in the area.
Kloveniersburgwal 95 1011 KB Amsterdam
t. +31 (0)20 4284284
e. info@upstreamgallery.nl
w. www.upstreamgallery.nl
i. @upstreamgallery
Opening hours: Wed-Sat | 13:00-18:00