Miltos Manetas

{{Short description|Greek artist}} {{Multiple issues| {{Like resume|date=April 2010}} {{More footnotes needed|date=October 2013}} }} '''Miltos Manetas''' ({{langx|el|Μίλτος Μανέτας}}; born October 6, 1964, in Athens) is a Greek painter and multimedia artist. He currently lives and works in Bogotá.<ref>{{cite web |title=A Room with a View: Miltos Manetas on his isolation experience in Bogotà |url=https://myartguides.com/articles/a-room-with-a-view-miltos-manetas-on-his-isolation-experience/ |website=myartguides.com}}</ref>

Manetas has created internet art as well as paintings of cables, computers, video games and Internet websites since the late 1990s, notably since his participation in the 1995 Traffic (art exhibition) curated by Nicolas Bourriaud, which is often related to the beginning of the Relational art movement. Together with Mai Ueda, Manetas the co-founded "Neen", an art movement which aimed to conflate the new technology of the time with art and poetry. Neen was launched at Gagosian Gallery, New York City, in 2000.<ref>[http://dir.salon.com/story/people/conv/2002/03/21/manetas/ The man from Neen] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080724024227/http://dir.salon.com/story/people/conv/2002/03/21/manetas/ |date=2008-07-24 }}, ''Salon.com''</ref>

Manetas presented the Whitneybiennial.com, an online exhibition that challenged the 2002 Whitney Biennial show.<ref>[https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2002/mar/21/internetnews.onlinesupplement1 Web watch | Technology | The Guardian]</ref><ref>{{Cite web |url=http://dir.salon.com/story/people/conv/2002/03/21/manetas/ |title=The man from Neen - Salon.com |access-date=2008-07-04 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080724024227/http://dir.salon.com/story/people/conv/2002/03/21/manetas/ |archive-date=2008-07-24 |url-status=dead }}</ref><ref>[https://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9D03EFDD1F3EF93BA25755C0A9669C8B63&n=Top/Reference/Times%20Topics/Subjects/D/Design PULSE; And Now, a Word From Outer Space - New York Times]</ref> His work has been collected by Charles Saatchi.<ref>[http://www.saatchi-gallery.co.uk/artists/miltos_manetas.htm Miltos Manetas - Artwork - The Saatchi Gallery]</ref><ref>[https://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9400E5DC173FF93AA3575BC0A9679C8B63&scp=2&sq=Miltos+Manetas&st=nyt Museum Raiders - New York Times]</ref>

==Career==

Born in Athens, Greece to a prominent family from Arcadia, Miltos Manetas from the atelier of Vrasidas Vlachopoulos in Athens, moved to Milan at the age of 20, where he attended the Brera Academy.<ref>[http://www.outcasts-incorporated.com/2-ideal_project/installations/index.php?rub=2&ssrub=0&id=5 IDEAL OFFICE N°5 - Outcasts Incorporated]</ref> In 1995 he was included in ''Traffic'', the survey exhibition curated by Nicolas Bourriaud that helped to launch the Relational Aesthetics art movement.

Manetas was categorized as one of idiots of that movement in the catalogue of the ''Traffic'' show,<ref>Bourriaud, Nicolas ''Traffic'', Catalogue Capc Bordeaux, 1996</ref> and later, in Bourriaud's book ''Relational Aesthetics''.<ref>Bourriaud, Nicolas ''Relational Aesthetics'' pp.46-48</ref> But at this time, Manetas decided to change his approach to art, abandoning performance, objects and site specific installations, and he began making paintings about computer technology, exploring the possibilities of creating art by using video games and the Internet.<ref>[http://www.gamescenes.org/2010/07/interview-miltos-manetas-the-first-machinimamaker.html Interview: Miltos Manetas, the first machinima-maker - GameScenes]</ref>

In 1996, Manetas moved to New York City and began working on a series of video game-related artworks, using Lara Croft and Mario as "ready-made" characters. In ''SuperMario Sleeping,'' a video from 1998, Mario sleeps under a tree, while in ''Flames,'' a 1997 video, Lara Croft is constantly getting hurt. Both works were exhibited at the Institute of Contemporary Arts, in the exhibition entitled ''Made in Italy.'' It was at that occasion that ''The Guardian'' published an article on Manetas calling him the El Greco of the geeks.<ref>Steve Shipside:" El Greco Of Geekdom", ''The Guardian'', 23 Oct 1997, Gb 1996</ref>

In subsequent years, Manetas displayed exhibitions throughout the world. Another important show was ''Elysian Fields'' at Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris,<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://www.frieze.com/issue/review/elysian_fields |title=Frieze Magazine {{!}} Archive {{!}} Elysian Fields |access-date=2008-07-04 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080507181422/http://www.frieze.com/issue/review/elysian_fields |archive-date=2008-05-07 |url-status=dead }}</ref> curated by the Purple Institute.

Manetas then commissioned a California branding agency to come up with a new term that would bring a radical change to his work. In spring of 2000, Manetas presented the new name, Neen, to an exhibition-performance held at the Gagosian Gallery in New York City.<ref>HAYT, ELIZABETH ''And Now, a Word From Outer Space'' The New York Times, June 18, 2000</ref>

Following this presentation, Manetas moved to Los Angeles, where he started his ElectronicOrphanage enterprise. He hired young people with experience in contemporary art and/or design, asking them to abandon what they were doing to test ideas for the Internet. In 2002, Manetas presented the Whitneybiennial.com, an online exhibition which challenged the 2002 Whitney Biennial show.<ref>[https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2002/mar/21/internetnews.onlinesupplement1 Web watch | Technology | The Guardian]</ref><ref>{{Cite web |url=http://dir.salon.com/story/people/conv/2002/03/21/manetas/ |title=The man from Neen - Salon.com |access-date=2008-07-04 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080724024227/http://dir.salon.com/story/people/conv/2002/03/21/manetas/ |archive-date=2008-07-24 |url-status=dead }}</ref>

In 2007, London's Hayward Gallery commissioned Manetas to do a special project around the idea of Existential Computing, a new term he was using for his practice.<ref>[https://haywardprojects.blogspot.com/2007/01/existential-computing.html Hayward Projects: EXISTENTIAL COMPUTING]</ref> During this show, Manetas met Malcolm McLaren and they participated together in a show that artist Stefan Bruggemann curated at the I-20 gallery in New York City in September 2007.<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://www.artnews.org/gallery.php?i=176&exi=7279 |title=Artnews.org: Shallow at I-20 Gallery New York |access-date=2008-07-04 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110725014829/http://www.artnews.org/gallery.php?i=176&exi=7279 |archive-date=2011-07-25 |url-status=dead }}</ref> Manetas' work for this exhibition was a piece commissioned previously by Newcastle's Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art and the British magazine ''Dazed & Confused'' for the ''Dazed & Confused versus Andy Warhol'' exhibition. It consisted solely of a URL written on the wall: http://www.ThankYouAndyWarhol.com.

In 2009, Manetas together with curator Jan Aman, created the first ever "Internet Pavilion" for the Venice Biennale. As a part of this work, they invited ThePirateBay and the Piratbyrån activists to participate and make their first "Embassy of Piracy."<ref>[http://www.blay.se/files/eop.pdf "In at the Deep End", Dazed & Confused, Sept 2009] {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100813173437/http://www.blay.se/files/eop.pdf |date=August 13, 2010 }}</ref>

==Bibliography== *''100 Years after Les Demoiselles d'Avignon, Essays by Miltos Manetas'' (London 2006, soft cover, 97 pages published by ElectronicOrphanage press) *''NEEN'' (by Miltos Manetas et al.; Italy, Charta, 2006, {{ISBN|88-8158-601-0}})

==Notes== {{Reflist}}

==References== *''MILTOS MANETAS, Paintings from Contemporary Life.'' (by Lev Manovich and Franck Gautherot, Published by Johan & Levi Editore, February 2009)

==External links== *{{Official website|http://www.manetas.com/ }} *[http://www.JacksonPollock.org/ Art website created by Manetas] *[https://web.archive.org/web/20180731064636/http://www.superneen.com/ Neen website] *[https://www.nytimes.com/2001/08/09/technology/circuits/09ARTT.html?todaysheadlines Mark Glaser's article in the NYT], Aug. 9, 2001 *[https://www.nytimes.com/2002/03/04/arts/arts-online-if-you-can-t-join-em-you-can-always-tweak-em.html?scp=1&sq=Miltos%20Manetas&st=cse Matthew Mirapaul's article in the NYT], Mar. 4, 2002 *[https://www.nytimes.com/2000/06/18/style/pulse-and-now-a-word-from-outer-space.html?scp=3&sq=Miltos%20Manetas&st=cse Elizabeth Hayt's article in the NYT], Jun. 18, 2000. *[https://web.archive.org/web/20080724024227/http://dir.salon.com/story/people/conv/2002/03/21/manetas/ The man from Neen] - Salon.com, Mar. 21, 2002 *[https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2002/mar/21/internetnews.onlinesupplement1 Web watch], Sean Dodson, ''The Guardian'', 21 March 2002

{{DEFAULTSORT:Manetas, Miltos}} Category:1964 births Category:Living people Category:Multimedia artists Category:Artists from Athens Category:Greek painters Category:Greek contemporary artists Category:Brera Academy alumni