Image: Nora Eccles Harrison Museum of Art, Los Angeles
The Nora Eccles Harrison Museum of Art will open 'Pixelated: Mike Whiting' on September 3, 2026, placing Utah artist Mike Whiting’s monumental sculptures in and around the museum’s campus and Logan site through June 5, 2027. The exhibition is framed as an exploration of how early digital graphics and minimalist sculpture can converge in works that appear to draw from very different histories but arrive at a similar visual result.
According to the museum’s exhibition materials, 'Pixelated' examines the relationship between the virtual world and daily life through Whiting’s large-scale sculptures. The works are described as sitting at the intersection of 8-bit pixel graphics and Minimalist sculpture, linking the simplified forms of early video-game imagery with an art movement that sought reduction and essential form. The museum specifically points to early games such as Pac-Man and Space Invaders as examples of graphics limited by technology, while Minimalist artists intentionally stripped away detail in search of basic structure.
Whiting’s sculptures are made with welded steel and automotive paint, materials the museum says he uses to consider themes including the natural and artificial world, play, movement, public art, and the intersection of technology and wellbeing. The exhibition text also notes that 'Pixelated' investigates the opposite intents behind the two visual traditions that produce a strikingly similar outcome. The museum identifies one included work as 'birdie' (2008), a powdercoated steel sculpture measuring 96 by 96 by 41 inches.
The exhibition’s online listing describes Michael Whiting as one of Utah’s best-known artists and says his whimsical, recognizable sculptures of colorful pixelated animals and objects have been shown widely. It notes that he was born in Provo in 1974 and earned a BFA from Brigham Young University and an MFA from Pratt Institute in Brooklyn. The same listing says his work is held in museum collections, public parks, and cities across the country, and cites a recent monumental exhibition at the Denver Botanic Gardens, along with public installations in Salt Lake City, Denver, Long Beach, Albuquerque, and Seattle.
'Pixelated' appears in NEHMA’s run of upcoming exhibitions announced in its August newsletter, alongside 'One Thing After Another: Karen Carson Retrospective' and Nicole Banowetz: 'The Intervening Substance.' The museum’s newsletter says Whiting’s monumental sculptures will be installed across campus and in Logan from summer 2026 to summer 2027, while the exhibition page gives the date range of September 3, 2026 to June 5, 2027 for 'Pixelated: Mike Whiting.'
NEHMA is located at 650 North 1100 East in Logan, Utah. Its summer hours are listed as Wednesday and Thursday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., Friday from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m., and Saturday from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.
