Miltos Manetas ( el, Μίλτος Μανέτας; born October 6, 1964 in
Athens
Athens ( ; el, Αθήνα, Athína ; grc, Ἀθῆναι, Athênai (pl.) ) is both the capital and largest city of Greece. With a population close to four million, it is also the seventh largest city in the European Union. Athens dominates ...
) is a
Greek
Greek may refer to:
Greece
Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe:
*Greeks, an ethnic group.
*Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family.
**Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...
painter and
multimedia art
Multimedia is a form of communication that uses a combination of different content forms such as text, audio, images, animations, or video into a single interactive presentation, in contrast to tradition ...
ist. He currently lives and works in
Bogotá
Bogotá (, also , , ), officially Bogotá, Distrito Capital, abbreviated Bogotá, D.C., and formerly known as Santa Fe de Bogotá (; ) during the Spanish period and between 1991 and 2000, is the capital city of Colombia, and one of the larges ...
.
Manetas has created
internet art
upright=1.3, "Simple Net Art Diagram", a 1997 work by Michael Sarff and Tim Whidden
Internet art (also known as net art) is a form of new media art distributed via the Internet. This form of art circumvents the traditional dominance of the phys ...
as well as paintings of cables, computers, video games and Internet websites since the late 1990s, notably since his participation in the 1995
Traffic (art exhibition)
Traffic is the title of a group exhibition of contemporary art that took place at CAPC musée d'art contemporain de Bordeaux, France, through February and March, 1996.
Theme
The exhibition was curated by Nicolas Bourriaud in order to showcase th ...
curated by
Nicolas Bourriaud
Nicolas Bourriaud (born 1965) is a curator and art critic, who has curated a great number of exhibitions and biennials all over the world.
With Jérôme Sans, Bourriaud cofounded the Palais de Tokyo in Paris, where he served as codirector from 199 ...
, which is often related to the beginning of the
Relational art
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 theor ...
movement. Together with Mai Ueda, Manetas the co-founded "Neen", an art movement which aimed to conflate the new technology of the time with art and poetry. Neen was launched at
Gagosian Gallery
Gagosian is a contemporary art gallery owned and directed by Larry Gagosian. The gallery exhibits some of the most influential artists of the 20th and 21st centuries. There are 16 gallery spaces: five in New York City; three in London; two in Par ...
,
New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...
in 2000.
Manetas presented the Whitneybiennial.com, an online exhibition that challenged the 2002
Whitney Biennial
The Whitney Biennial is a biennial exhibition of contemporary American art, typically by young and lesser known artists, on display at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City, United States. The event began as an annual exhibition in ...
show.
His work has been collected by
Charles Saatchi
Charles Saatchi (; ar, تشارلز ساعتجي; born 9 June 1943) is an Iraqi-British businessman and the co-founder, with his brother Maurice, of advertising agency Saatchi & Saatchi. The brothers led the business – the world's largest a ...
.
Career
Born in Athens, Greece to a prominent war family from
Arcadia
Arcadia may refer to:
Places Australia
* Arcadia, New South Wales, a suburb of Sydney
* Arcadia, Queensland
* Arcadia, Victoria
Greece
* Arcadia (region), a region in the central Peloponnese
* Arcadia (regional unit), a modern administrative un ...
, Miltos Manetas from the atelier of Vrasidas Vlachopoulos in Athens, moved to
Milan
Milan ( , , Lombard: ; it, Milano ) is a city in northern Italy, capital of Lombardy, and the second-most populous city proper in Italy after Rome. The city proper has a population of about 1.4 million, while its metropolitan city h ...
at the age of 20, where he attended the
Brera Academy
The Accademia di Belle Arti di Brera ("academy of fine arts of Brera"), also known as the or Brera Academy, is a state-run tertiary public academy of fine arts in Milan, Italy. It shares its history, and its main building, with the Pinacoteca di ...
. In 1995 he was included in
''Traffic'', the survey exhibition curated by
Nicolas Bourriaud
Nicolas Bourriaud (born 1965) is a curator and art critic, who has curated a great number of exhibitions and biennials all over the world.
With Jérôme Sans, Bourriaud cofounded the Palais de Tokyo in Paris, where he served as codirector from 199 ...
that helped to launch the
Relational Aesthetics art movement.
Manetas was categorized as one of idiots of that movement in the catalogue of the
''Traffic'' show, and later, in Bourriaud's book ''Relational Aesthetics''. But at this time, Manetas decided to change his approach to art, abandoning
performance
A performance is an act of staging or presenting a play, concert, or other form of entertainment. It is also defined as the action or process of carrying out or accomplishing an action, task, or function.
Management science
In the work place ...
, objects and site specific
installations, and he began making
paintings
Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a solid surface (called the "matrix" or "support"). The medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush, but other implements, such as knives, sponges, and ai ...
about computer technology, exploring the possibilities of creating art by using video games and the Internet.
In 1996, Manetas moved to
New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...
and began working on a series of video game-related artworks, using
Lara Croft
Lara Croft is a fictional character and the main protagonist of the video game franchise ''Tomb Raider''. She is presented as a highly intelligent and athletic British archaeologist who ventures into ancient tombs and hazardous ruins around th ...
and
Mario
is a character created by Japanese video game designer Shigeru Miyamoto. He is the title character of the ''Mario'' franchise and the mascot of Japanese video game company Nintendo. Mario has appeared in over 200 video games since his creat ...
as "ready-made" characters. In ''SuperMario Sleeping,'' a video from 1998, Mario sleeps under a tree, while in ''Flames,'' a 1997 video, Lara Croft is constantly getting hurt. Both works were exhibited at the
Institute of Contemporary Arts
The Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA) is an artistic and cultural centre on The Mall in London, just off Trafalgar Square. Located within Nash House, part of Carlton House Terrace, near the Duke of York Steps and Admiralty Arch, the ICA c ...
, in the exhibition entitled ''Made in Italy.'' It was at that occasion that ''
The Guardian
''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...
'' published an article on Manetas calling him the
El Greco
Domḗnikos Theotokópoulos ( el, Δομήνικος Θεοτοκόπουλος ; 1 October 1541 7 April 1614), most widely known as El Greco ("The Greek"), was a Greek painter, sculptor and architect of the Spanish Renaissance. "El G ...
of the
geeks
The word ''geek'' is a slang term originally used to describe eccentric or non-mainstream people; in current use, the word typically connotes an expert or enthusiast obsessed with a hobby or intellectual pursuit. In the past, it had a generall ...
.
In subsequent years, Manetas displayed exhibitions throughout the world. Another important show was ''Elysian Fields'' at
Centre Georges Pompidou
The Centre Pompidou (), more fully the Centre national d'art et de culture Georges-Pompidou ( en, National Georges Pompidou Centre of Art and Culture), also known as the Pompidou Centre in English, is a complex building in the Beaubourg area of ...
in Paris, curated by the Purple Institute.
Manetas then commissioned a California branding agency to come up with a new term that would bring a radical change to his work. In spring of 2000, Manetas presented the new name, Neen, to an exhibition-performance held at the
Gagosian Gallery
Gagosian is a contemporary art gallery owned and directed by Larry Gagosian. The gallery exhibits some of the most influential artists of the 20th and 21st centuries. There are 16 gallery spaces: five in New York City; three in London; two in Par ...
in New York City.
Following this presentation, Manetas moved to
Los Angeles
Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the world' ...
, where he started his ElectronicOrphanage enterprise. He hired young people with experience in contemporary art and/or design, asking them to abandon what they were doing to test ideas for the Internet. In 2002, Manetas presented the Whitneybiennial.com, an online exhibition which challenged the 2002
Whitney Biennial
The Whitney Biennial is a biennial exhibition of contemporary American art, typically by young and lesser known artists, on display at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City, United States. The event began as an annual exhibition in ...
show.
In 2007, London's
Hayward Gallery
The Hayward Gallery is an art gallery within the Southbank Centre in central London, England and part of an area of major arts venues on the South Bank of the River Thames. It is sited adjacent to the other Southbank Centre buildings (the Roy ...
commissioned Manetas to do a special project around the idea of Existential Computing, a new term he was using for his practice. During this show, Manetas met
Malcolm McLaren
Malcolm Robert Andrew McLaren (22 January 1946 – 8 April 2010) was an English impresario, visual artist, singer, songwriter, musician, clothes designer and boutique owner, notable for combining these activities in an inventive and provoc ...
and they participated together in a show that artist Stefan Bruggemann curated at the
I-20
Interstate 20 (I‑20) is a major east–west Interstate Highway in the Southern United States. I-20 runs beginning at an interchange with I-10 in Scroggins Draw, Texas, and ending at an interchange with I-95 in Florence, South Carolina. Between ...
gallery in New York City in September 2007. Manetas' work for this exhibition was a piece commissioned previously by Newcastle's
Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art
Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art (also known simply as (the) Baltic, stylised as BALTIC) is a centre for contemporary art located on the south bank of the River Tyne in Gateshead, Tyne and Wear, England. It hosts a frequently changing variety ...
and the British magazine ''
Dazed & Confused'' for the ''Dazed & Confused versus Andy Warhol'' exhibition. It consisted solely of a URL written on the wall: http://www.ThankYouAndyWarhol.com.
In 2009, Manetas together with curator Jan Aman, created the first ever "Internet Pavilion" for the
Venice Biennale
The Venice Biennale (; it, La Biennale di Venezia) is an international cultural exhibition hosted annually in Venice, Italy by the Biennale Foundation. The biennale has been organised every year since 1895, which makes it the oldest of ...
. As a part of this work, they invited
ThePirateBay
The Pirate Bay (sometimes abbreviated as TPB) is an online index of digital content of entertainment media and software. Founded in 2003 by Swedish think tank Piratbyrån, The Pirate Bay allows visitors to search, download, and contribute mag ...
and the
Piratbyrån
Piratbyrån ( "The Pirate Bureau") was a Swedish think tank established to support the free sharing of information, culture, and intellectual property. Piratbyrån provided a counterpoint to lobby groups such as the Swedish Anti-Piracy Bureau.
...
activists to participate and make their first "Embassy of Piracy."
">"In at the Deep End", Dazed & Confused, Sept 2009
Bibliography
*''100 Years after Les Demoiselles d'Avignon, Essays by Miltos Manetas'' (London 2006, soft cover, 97 pages published by ElectronicOrphanage press)
*''NEEN'' (by Miltos Manetas et al.; Italy, Charta, 2006, )
Notes
References
*''MILTOS MANETAS, Paintings from Contemporary Life.'' (by Lev Manovich and Franck Gautherot, Published by Johan & Levi Editore, February 2009)
External links
*
Art website created by Manetas
Neen website
Aug. 9, 2001
Mar. 4, 2002
Jun. 18, 2000.
The man from Neen
- Salon.com
''Salon'' is an American politically progressive/liberal news and opinion website created in 1995. It publishes articles on U.S. politics, culture, and current events.
Content and coverage
''Salon'' covers a variety of topics, including re ...
, Mar. 21, 2002
Web watch
Sean Dodson, ''The Guardian'', 21 March 2002
{{DEFAULTSORT:Manetas, Miltos
1964 births
Living people
Multimedia artists
Artists from Athens
Greek painters
Greek contemporary artists
Brera Academy alumni