Net Art Anthology culminates in New Museum exhibition

The New Museum in New York presents 'The Art Happens Here: Net Art's Archival Poetics', a landmark exhibition tracing the history of Net Art from 1985 to the present. Curated by Michael Connor and Aria Dean of Rhizome, the show features 16 works selected from the organization's Net Art Anthology, a two-year online project that highlighted 100 pivotal pieces. Founded in 1996 by artist Mark Tribe, Rhizome has been a key advocate for digital and internet art, partnering with the New Museum since 2003. The exhibition spans diverse media including websites, software, sculpture, and merchandise, exploring how artists have responded to networked culture. Highlights include Shu Lea Cheang's 'Garlic=RichAir' (2002), a three-wheeled pickup truck with garlic bulbs and monitors for an online game; Alexei Shulgin's '386 DX' (1998), a cyberpunk band running on a Windows 3.1 computer; and Morehshin Allahyari's 'The Distributed Monument' (2016–ongoing), 3D-printed replicas of artifacts destroyed by ISIS. Other works address digital intimacy, amateur web culture, and historical trauma, such as Wolfgang Staehle's 'untitled' capturing the 9/11 attacks. The exhibition runs through May 26, 2019.