Image: Screenshots from artport commissions, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York. Courtesy New Information
The Whitney Museum of American Art will mark the 25th anniversary of artport, its online gallery space for net-art commissions, with ‘artport: A History of Internet Art’, opening November 21, 2026. Presented both online and in the Museum’s sixth-floor gallery, the exhibition will bring together more than 100 works commissioned specifically for artport and trace the development of Internet art across a quarter century.
Launched in 2001, artport is the Whitney’s portal to Internet art and an online gallery for commissions of net art and new-media art. Alongside original works commissioned by the Museum, the platform provides documentation of net-art and new-media exhibitions at the Whitney, access to new-media works in the Museum’s collection, and archives of earlier artport projects.
The anniversary exhibition is structured around three main commissioning categories on the platform. These are the Gate Pages, created between 2001 and 2006 as portals to artists’ websites; the main Commissions, which have continued since 2001; and the Sunrise/Sunset series, which ran from 2009 to 2024, followed by its successor, On the Hour. In the gallery, an open floor plan is designed to create the impression of floating browser windows, translating the history of online art into a physical exhibition environment.
The works span code, data visualisation, nonlinear narrative, worldbuilding, gaming environments and AI-driven net art. According to the Whitney’s exhibition materials, the artists examine the ways the Internet has reshaped privacy, identity, self-perception, surveillance and the boundaries between online and offline life. The presentation treats the Internet not only as a subject but also as a site and medium for artistic production.
The programme will include the world premiere of ‘Human Unreadable Act III’ by the artist duo Operator. The live work completes ‘Human Unreadable’, a generative choreography project that has unfolded in three acts since 2023. Described by the Museum as a multimedia performance, Act III considers the artists’ negotiations between the body, ambition and technology. Performances are scheduled for November 19, 21 and 22 in the Whitney’s Susan and John Hess Family Theater; the first date falls before the exhibition’s November 21 opening.
‘artport: A History of Internet Art’ is organised by Christiane Paul, the Whitney’s Curator of Digital Art, with David Lisbon, Curatorial Assistant, and Colin Brooks, Head of Digital Development. The exhibition will remain available online while its gallery presentation occupies the Museum’s sixth floor; the supplied exhibition listing gives an opening date of November 21, 2026, without an announced closing date.
