This century’s latest digital and generative tools have opened frontiers for artists, ushering in novel mediums and methods, while fast-tracking the rise of algorithmic art. But, as a new show is arguing, code-based creations have roots way back, long before the advent of the digital age.
At Toledo Museum of Art, “Infinite Images: The Art of Algorithms” is retracing the history of code-based art, exploring how the geometric abstraction and rule-based systems of the early 1960s have made way for the generative code and digital methodologies of today. The 24 artists featured here span time periods, but their practices collectively reveal how computational strategies could shape creative expression. Their gathering here raises a new question: what does it mean to make art in the age of automation?
“Generative art has risen to prominence in recent years thanks, in part, to innovations introduced by blockchain technologies as well as generative A.I.,” said curator Julia Kaganskiy in a statement. “This exhibition considers the long lineage of generative and algorithmic strategies in art-making, as well as the shifting definition of generative practice and how artists work with rules, chance, emergence, and automation.”
Quayola, (2017). Courtesy of the Toledo Museum of Art.
In subject, “Infinite Images” joins past landmark shows such as “Programmed: Rules, Codes, and Choreographies in Art, 1965–2018” at the Whitney Museum of American Art and “Thinking Machines: Art and Design in the Computer Age, 1959–1989” at New York’s Museum of Modern Art that explore how artists use systems and technology to challenge creativity. The Toledo Museum’s outing, though, widens the scope to highlight how the blockchain and generative systems have minted new approaches.
The exhibition opens on the 1960s, when pioneers of conceptual and abstract artists were venturing art by way of systems. Sol LeWitt was embarking on an instruction-based approach to his wall drawings (what we today might call “prompts”); Josef Albers was implementing rules for his color-rich paintings of squares; and Vera Molnár was producing her first computer artworks with an analog algorithmic process and a plotter. The exhibition brings together some of their significant rules-guided works—from Molnár intricate generative series “Interruptions” (1968–69) to an example of LeWitt’s printed instructions from 1977.
Entangled Others, (2022–23). Courtesy of the Toledo Museum of Art.
The bulk of “Infinite Images” is given to the explosion of creativity in the digital age. Generative, on-chain art dominates, represented by Larva Labs’ (2017) and (2019), Snowfro‘s (2020), and Dmitri Cherniak’s (2021). But the show also spotlights how randomness and chance, simulation and interactivity are playing roles in contemporary art practices. Cases in point: 0xDEAFBEEF‘s (2021/2025), an audiovisual sculpture that can be “played” according to set parameters and Sarah Meyohas‘s (2019), which intersects natural and manmade systems.
Notably, the exhibition marks the institutional debut of a number of digital creatives, among them Operator, the artist duo that’s been lending a conceptual lens to the blockchain, and Emily Xie, whose generative artworks have reimagined traditional crafts.
Operator, from the series “Human Unreadable” (2022). Courtesy of the Toledo Museum of Art.
A number of these digital pieces are emerging from the collection of Alan Howard, the hedge fund manager who—besides owning a $43 million Monet that once belonged to Imelda Marcos—began amassing generative artworks during the NFT boom. To him, these digital works represent a “natural evolution” of artistic expression: where creatives once wielded oils and paintbrushes, they now have new media to hand.
“Digital art continues this lineage, not in competition with traditional media, but in dialogue with it,” he noted in a statement. “This exhibition serves as an opportunity to experience firsthand how digital art resonates within the broader continuum of artistic expression.”
Source: Exhibition - news.artnet.com
