bitforms gallery

b. 1961, United States

Mark Napier is recognized as one of the first to explore the potential of the Internet as a space for public art. Breaking boundaries of ownership in early web-based works such as Shredder (1998), Riot (1999), and Feed (2001), Napier questioned fixed designs of web navigation, opened content choices to users, and dissolved information into abstract expression. His recent works investigate monumentality, permanence, skin, the body, obsolescence, mythology, and architecture.

Commissioned to create Internet art for the permanent collections of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Napier was also part of the 2002 biennial at the Whitney Museum of American Art. Exhibitions of his work include Centre Pompidou, Paris; P.S.1, New York; Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; Ars Electronica, Linz; The Kitchen; Künstlerhaus, Vienna; ZKM (Center for Art and Media), Karlsruhe; Transmediale, Berlin; iMAL Center, Brussels; Eyebeam; Markel Foundation in Rockefeller Center; Center for Curatorial Studies at Bard College; Princeton Art Museum; la Villette, Paris, W Hotel, Seoul; Lafayette College; and Cleveland State University. He has received grants from Creative Capital, the Greenwall Foundation, and the New York Foundation for the Arts.

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