Pixel Pioneers

Digital Art

Pixel Pioneers is Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen’s first major exhibition devoted entirely to digital art. In two galleries of the Depot, visitors are taken on an inspiring journey through the work of artists who use digital technology to experiment, provoke and reshape our visual culture.

Horizons

The centrepiece is Horizons (2008) by the Dutch artist Geert Mul (b. 1965). An interactive installation that has not been shown since it was commissioned for the museum almost twenty years ago. Visitors move through a projected landscape, composed of more than two hundred horizon images from the museum’s collection. With every step taken by visitors, the work changes, so that new horizons continue to emerge. Horizons has been restored especially for this exhibition, a process that involved not only technical challenges but also questions such as: how do we preserve digital art for the future?

Pioneers

The second gallery surprises visitors with new commissions and key works by international pioneers. Suzanne Treister (b. 1958, United Kingdom) presents works from her Hexen series, which exposes the power structures behind technology. Claudia Hart (b. 1955, United States) presents a new immersive installation about failed cryptocurrencies. Feng Mengbo (b. 1966, China) invites visitors to play his Long March: Restart, a video game that brings Chinese revolutionary history back to life in retro game style.

Acknowledgements

The exhibition Pixel Pioneers is made possible with support from the VriendenLoterij, the Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen Foundation with a contribution from the estate of Rine Coolen – Kalkman, and the Municipality of Rotterdam.