Rafaël Rozendaal - Introduction

RAFAËL ROZENDAAL

Rafaël Rozendaal (1980) is a Dutch-Brazilian artist who currently lives in New York. His work is regularly exhibited, not only in Europe and the U.S. but also in Asia and South America. He has worked with institutions such as the Centre Pompidou, Kunstverein Frankfurt, Seoul Art Fair, Media Art Institute and the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam. He is a regular speaker on digital art topics and his work is discussed in international publications such as Time Magazine, Wall Street Journal, Flash Art and Interview. Rozendaal is also the founder of the exhibition concept Bring Your Own Beamer, an evening where artists bring their own projectors to display their digital work. Since 2010 there have been over 100 BYOB exhibitions, including one at the Venice Biennale.

Rafaël Rozendaal

Random Fear with Mirrors, 2019

Installed at Kunsthal, Rotterdam

Midnight Moment, 2015 Times Square, New York

The world’s biggest kiss (HD video), 2012

Seoul Square

NFT project 81 Horizons installation, 2023 Solo exhibition Color, Code, Communication at Museum Folkwang, Essen

Hommage, 2022

Solo exhibition Color, Code, Communicatoin at Museum Folkwang, Essen

Websites

Rafaël Rozendaal has made a name with his websites as unique artworks since 2001. Websites have distinctive qualities that no other art medium has: they are publicly accessible, unique “objects” that exists all over the world at the same time. Unlike video, these websites have no beginning or end. They are infinitely generated via algorithms. These sites constantly create new abstract formations, which produce chance juxtapositions when displayed next to each other. By showing the same website as four instances on four screens, the unpredictability of the algorithm is felt by the viewer. Rozendaal compares his websites to waterfalls: they are always doing the same thing, but they never repeat themselves. The abstract websites provide an almost meditative or hypnotic experience. They function as endpoints on the web. Not places to endlessly scroll but to endlessly stare. They provide a moment of stillness in the chaos that is the web.

Kenpoku Festival in Japan

Double Pressure, 2019 Centraal Museum, Utrecht

Discrete Objects, 2019

Upstream Gallery, Amsterdam

Freedom of Movement, 2018

Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam

Abstract Browsing Tapestries

In 2014, Rozendaal developed the plug-in Abstract Browsing. Its code alters information from websites: images, advertisements and text fields are transformed into brightly colored geometric elements. This way, the narrative of the Internet makes room for an abstract composition that reveals the underlying structure of websites.

Rozendaal collects thousands of screenshots of Abstract Browsing generated compositions. A number of these are then selected by him to be produced as tapestry.

Rozendaal: ‘I look for compositions that are the least picturesque. Painting is about a concentrated view, about beauty rather than utility. Websites are built exactly the opposite: developers are constantly looking for new structures that entice users to click somewhere, generating the highest advertisement revenue. Websites are created from necessity and efficiency, not beauty. I select compositions that are a bit awkward, unlike classic abstract painting that is about tranquility and contemplation.’

Abstract Browsing, 2016

tapestry / textile (acrylic wool)

86 x 144 cm

Complex Computational Compositions, 2016

Upstream Gallery, Amsterdam

Abstract Browsing, 2016

Steve Turner, Los Angeles

Abstract Browsing, 2016

Steve Turner, Los Angeles

Lenticular Paintings

For Rozendaal, the Lenticular paintings are a way of translating his digital work into the physical world. He started making these ‘Lenticular Paintings’ in 2013. The technique of these works are known mostly from postcards where the image moves when you tilt the card. The quality of these prints is significantly higher than these postcards, which produces a profound effect with multi-layer colours and a canvas that seems to move when you walk past it. In this way the physical object can refer to the digital platorm: there is movement and a way of interaction between the canvas and the onlooker, also the number of compositions is endless.

Into Time, 2018

Tokyo Photographic (TOP) Art Museum

Almost Nothing, 2014

Steve Turner, Los Angeles

Near Next

Rozendaal has been translating his digital work into physical art objects. This has for instance resulted in a large body of work that makes use of the lenticular technique, providing a way to create a moving image without the use of electricity. In close collaboration with the TextielMuseum Tilburg, Rozendaal has now developed a new weaving structure that is based on this same principle.

The Near Next tapestries are mechanically woven from linen, and evoke a sense of movement when the viewer walks past it. Although the tapestries consist of only two opposing colors, the physical irregularity of the material creates a very lively and organic image. This is reinforced by the use of linen, which is used as the basis of most paintings. In these weavings, the linen is saturated with pigments. Even though there is no paint applied on the surface, the lenticular linen still gives the works a painterly character. The weavings behave in fact as analog screens with a very simple algorithm: one color or another, A or B, 1 or 0. They deal with interactivity in the most basic form: the image changes along with the point of view of the observer.

Near Next, 2018 lenticular tapestry

Near Next, 2018

Discrete Objects, 2019

Upstream Gallery, Amsterdam

Rozendaal’s Haiku are short poems inspired by the Japanese tradition. The compact poems range in subject matter from touching existential musings on the complexities of the digital age to the mundane pleasure of ignoring emails or getting paid on time. Rozendaal sees similarities between Haiku and computational processes: each time the haiku is read, a moment happens, the algorithm runs, the three lines of code start a process in the mind of the reader.

Haiku

Nervous, 2019

Postmasters Gallery, Rome

Shadow Objects

Rozendaal’s Shadow Objects are works of deceptive simplicity that fluctuate between an image and an object, a drawing and a sculpture. In what can be considered the shortest path from digital to physical, Rozendaal creates shapes which are coded to be cut by computer out of rectangular plates of white steel. The composition is furthear influenced by its illumination and the point of view. With an emphasis on the dynamic potential of shading the series can be seen in the tradition of artists like Lucio Fontana and Jan Schoonhoven, translated into the twenty-first century. The works mirror the digital realm, where drop-shadows lend the illusion of presence and form to immaterial, virtual objects. These contemplative voids and the shadow objects they create counter the cacophony and information overload of online life.

Mechanical Paintings

With his Mechanical Paintings, Rozendaal explores yet another way of capturing the virtual into the physical world. Mechanical Paintings consists of digital drawings turned into tangible, mechanical, paintings made through the application of enamel on steel. The traditional craftsmanship of enamelling on steel builds on Rozendaal’s previous takes on transitioning his online work to the material world. One may quickly recall the artist’s tapestry works, or his lenticulars.

In the paintings, Rozendaal explores the abstraction of everyday objects and scenes through the lens of the early internet’s innocence and optimism, whereby positioning the internet as a place waiting to be discovered, rather than one used as a political or commercial tool. The Mechanical Paintings additionally play with the beauty and perspective of early video games. The abstraction of the images leaves the viewer with the suggestion, or even creation, of movement, as though the places represented are waiting on something to happen in them. The viewer is left captivated with anticipation, much like before the start of a videogame, or as the artist puts it – ‘the suggestion of movement is actually more interesting than animating it’. The works are somewhere between digital and physical, between movement and still, between abstract and figurative.

Mechanical Paintings, 2021

Upstream Gallery, Amsterdam

Mechanical Paintings, 2021

Upstream Gallery, Amsterdam

Rafaël Rozendaal

Mechanical Panting 21 02 10 (Flat Road), 2021

Enamel

80 x 120 cm

Rafaël Rozendaal

Mechanical Painting 20 11 01 (Beach), 2021

Enamel

80 x 120 cm

Extra Nervous

With Extra Nervous, a line of plexi-glass works, Rozendaal continues his investigation in the transition from movement into abstraction and from virtual into physical space. In what can be considered the shortest path from digital to physical, the compositions Rozendaal created are coded to be laser-cut by a computer out of colored plexiglass. They translate an exact, digital line into the physical world, like a mechanical way of drawing.The mirroring colors refer to the experience of color in the digital world: smooth, without texture, seen through the glass of a screen. Through the use of mirrors, there’s also a sense of movement in the works. They deal with interactivity in the most basic form: the image changes along with the point of view of the observer.

Reading & Listening

Find the artist’s website here.

Rafaël Rozendaal, Notes on Abstract Browsing, see here

Three Star Books, Home Alone, see here.

Monography Everything, Always, Everywhere, here.

Spheres Projects, Rafaël Rozendaal: Haiku (2018), see here

Artist talk, Haus der elektronischen Künste Basel, see here.

It’s Nice That article, see here.

Upstream Gallery

Upstream Gallery, established in 2003, has quickly gained a credible international reputation among collectors, art institutions and critics, and is a perfect example of Amsterdam’s internationally renowned contribution to contemporary art. With a focus on radical, engaged, conceptual and post-internet art Upstream Gallery brings pioneering and critical work from artists from the Netherlands and abroad.

Since September 2015 Upstream is situated in a monumental 17th-century city palace in Amsterdam's city center. The ground floor consists of two exhibition spaces, office space and a private-viewing room which is used as an extended exhibition space and private showroom. The iconic grand canal house, known as the Poppenhuis ('Poppen House'), was built by renowned architect Philips Vingboons in 1642 and is one of his major works. With its sleek, classical facade it draws much attention among the many step-gables in the area.

Kloveniersburgwal 95

1011 KB Amsterdam

t. +31 (0)20 4284284

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