The Body Electric (Nov. 5, 2020–May 30, 2021) looks at our fraught relationship to technology, particularly the increasingly inescapable interface between our bodies and screens. The remarkably varied art in the exhibition examines the last 50 years of artists addressing the way technological mediation has come to dominate our interactions with the world, with each other, and with ourselves.
In an age dominated by digital technology, The Body Electric explores themes of the real and the virtual, the organic and the artificial, moving from the world into the screen and back again. Looking across the past 50 years, the exhibition presents an intergenerational and international group of 59 artists and collectives that have seized upon the screen as a place to rethink the body and identity, with a particular emphasis on questions of gender, sexuality, class, and race. The exhibition contextualizes contemporary artists who today engage with digital technology and the influence of the Internet within a broader art historical narrative to reveal shared interests that emerge across generations, despite differing technological means. In this video, the curator of The Body Electric, Pavel Pyś, talks about the art and ideas explored by the exhibition, and how he organized its thematic sections.
The Body Electric is organized by the Walker Art Center. The exhibition is made possible by generous support from the Carl & Marilynn Thoma Art Foundation. Additional support provided by Ellen and Jan Breyer and the David and Leni Moore Family Foundation. The Body Electric is curated by Pavel Pyś, Curator, Visual Arts, Walker Art Center, with Jadine Collingwood, Curatorial Fellow. The presentation at MOAD is organized by Rina Carvajal, Executive Director and Chief Curator, with Isabela Villanueva, Consulting Assistant Curator, and is made possible by the Miami-Dade County Department of Cultural Affairs and the Cultural Affairs Council, the Miami-Dade County Mayor and Board of County Commissioners; and the State of Florida, Department of State, Division of Cultural Affairs and the Florida Council on Arts and Culture. Additional support was received from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation as part of its Immersive Technologies in the Arts initiative.