LIGHT: RAFAËL ROZENDAAL

Art | March 15, 2025 |

lightrafaelrozendaal newyork 006 — Image courtesy of Rafaël Rozendaal. Photomontage of the Gund Lobby featuring *Flood*, 2023. Digital animation using generative algorithm. Private collection.

Light: Rafaël Rozendaal
The Museum of Modern Art, New York
November 16, 2024 – Spring 2025

The Museum of Modern Art announces Light: Rafaël Rozendaal, an immersive digital artwork, on view from November 16, 2024 through Spring 2025 on the Hyundai Card Digital Wall in MoMA’s Agnes Gund Garden Lobby. This installation presents a selection of Rozendaal’s vibrant animated works, each sampled for two to three minutes. Each work originates as a storyboard sketched on paper, which is then translated into code of only a few kilobytes (the exhibition’s total file size is 135 KB).

lightrafaelrozendaal newyork 003 — Image courtesy of Rafaël Rozendaal. *Rooms*, 2024. Digital animation using generative algorithm. Collection the artist.

The resulting final form is an autonomous website powered by that algorithm, generating the animation in real time. 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.

lightrafaelrozendaal newyork 002 — Image courtesy of Rafaël Rozendaal. *Implosion*, 2023. Digital animation using generative algorithm. Collection the artist.

Rafaël Rozendaal (Dutch-Brazilian, born 1980) has been an innovator in the realm of Internet-based art since the early 2000s. He produces captivating animations that explore the aesthetic and conceptual possibilities of code, treating it as if it were paint. Rozendaal has historically planned his websites to be robust enough to withstand the evolution of both software and hardware, and to be equally vivid at any screen resolution.

lightrafaelrozendaal newyork 005 — Image courtesy of Rafaël Rozendaal. *Quadrant*, 2023. Digital animation using generative algorithm. Private collection.

The artworks adapt fluidly to any display, from a smartphone to the high-resolution LED screen in MoMA’s Agnes Gund Garden Lobby, which spans nearly 25 feet across. The result is a state of immersion so complete that it seems to merge with the physical world. Because Rozendaal has chosen the Internet as his canvas, his works exist within the browser’s flat yet multidimensional digital landscape. For the same reason, these and all his works are accessible to all online through their URLs, even though they are held in private and public collections.

lightrafaelrozendaal newyork 001 — Image courtesy of Rafaël Rozendaal. *Pages,* 2023. Digital animation using generative algorithm. Variation 39: Erick and Mara Calderon Collection.

“I imagine we will live in a world where there is no difference between a screen and any other surface,” said Rozendaal. “I always wanted to make work that could be seen by anyone, anywhere, anytime. I wanted to create work that gives the viewer a feeling of possibility.” “Rafaël’s digital artworks are lean, accessible, indestructible. They bend and adapt and never break. They are the ultimate example of the power that comes from lightness,” says Paola Antonelli.

more. www.moma.org

lightrafaelrozendaal newyork 008 — Image courtesy of Rafaël Rozendaal. Photomontage of the Gund Lobby featuring *Twisting and Turning*, 2021. Digital animation using generative algorithm. Collection Russell Smith.

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