Refigured
March 3–July 3, 2023

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Drawn from the Whitney Museum’s permanent collection of digital video, animation, virtual sculpture, and augmented reality, Refigured reflects on interactions between digital and physical artwork. Sculptures are simultaneously presented in physical and virtual space, while video and animation works extend beyond screens and into the galleries. This exhibition brings together works by American Artist, Morehshin Allahyari, Zach Blas and Jemima Wyman, Auriea Harvey, and Rachel Rossin. Each artist’s work engages with the concept of “refiguring,” appropriating material forms and bodies to re-create and reinvent them. In the works on view, refiguring becomes a process of imagining alternative worlds as a means for constructing identity.

The five digital art installations in Refigured respond to the various forces that form identity, such as new modes of self-representation (via avatars) and even structures of oppression, from technological systems to colonialism. Some works explore how identity is embedded in the development of computer interfaces and artificial intelligence. Others address the refiguring of identity in both online environments and ancient cultural myths. Refigured highlights the porous boundaries between today’s material and virtual realms and the ways in which their interplay shapes our idea of selfhood.

This exhibition is organized by Christiane Paul, Curator of Digital Art at the Whitney Museum of American Art.