Cory Arcangel

Cory Arcangel (born 1978, Buffalo, NY), is an artist, composer, curator, and entrepreneur living and working in Stavanger, Norway. Arcangel explores the potential and failures of old and new digital technologies, highlighting their obsolescence, humor, aesthetic attributes and, at times, eerie influence in contemporary life. Applying a semi-archeological methodology, his practice explores, encodes, and hacks the structural language of video games, software, social media and machine learning — treating them as subject matter and medium. Notable works include Totally Fucked (2003), a hacked Mario Bros game cartridge where Mario is stuck on a cube forever; Permanent Vacation (2008), where two computers are locked in an out of office email loop;  Drei Klavierstücke op.11 (2009), in which Arnold Schoenberg’s homonymous 1909 score is plated by editing together YouTube clips of cats playing pianos; Working on my Novel (2009), a compendium of Twitter search results for “working on my novel”;  Various Self Playing Bowling Games (2011), video games modified to throw gutter balls; Flatware (2018-), a series of abstract “paintings” mounted on Ikea tabletops sourced from a diverse range of leisurewear and,  /roʊˈdeɪoʊ/ Let's Play: HOLLYWOOD (2017-2021), a custom built high performance machine learning computer which plays, as it learns, Kim Kardashian: Hollywood, a free-to-play role-playing Android game. Recent and ongoing projects include ‘ALL I EAT IN A DAY,’ Curated by Cory Arcangel and Giovanni Carmine at Kunst Halle Sankt Gallen, Switzerland; ‘Form Matters, Matter Forms: From Readymade to Product Fetish,’ Kunst Museum Winterthur, Switzerland ‘🌊💨&🔥,’ ART on THE MART, Chicago; ‘Let’s Play Majerus G3,’ Michel Majerus Estate, Berlin; and “Worldbuilding: Gaming and Art in the Digital Age” at Julia Stoschek Collection, Dusseldorf, Germany and Centre Pompidou Metz, France.

Arcangel  is the youngest artist since Bruce Nauman to have been given a full floor solo exhibition at the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York (2011). Other exhibitions comprise: “Let’s Play Majerus G3,” Michel Majerus Estate, Berlin, Germany (2024), “Midnight Moment - Another Romp Through the IP (Times Square edit)”, Times Square (2022), “Topline”, at CC Foundation, Shanghai (2019), “BACK OFF”, at Firstsite, Colchester, Essex, UK (2019), “Be the first of your friends” at Espace Louis Vuitton München, Munich, Germany (2015), “This is all so crazy, everybody seems so famous” at Galleria d‘Arte Moderna e Contemporanea, Bergamo (2015), “All The Small Things” at the Reykjavik Art Museum, Reykjavik (2015), “Masters” at the Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh (2012–13), “Beat the Champ” at the Barbican, London (2011), and “Here Comes Everybody” at the Hamburger Bahnhof, Berlin (2010–11) and Nerdzone Version 1 at the Migros Museum für Gegenwartskunst, Zürich (2005). Arcangel received the Kino der Kunst Award in 2015 and was shortlisted for the Nam June Paik Award in 2014. His work was included in the Whitney Biennial at the Whitney Museum of American Art and the Liverpool Biennial (both 2004). In 2014, he launched Arcangel Surfware, a merchandise and publishing imprint. Its flagship store opened in Stavanger, Norway in 2018. (https://www.lissongallery.com/artists/cory-arcangel)