Jon Rafman

Rafman makes environments, films, photographs and sculptures that examine the blurring of the real and virtual. Often constructing works which are composites of materials, including video footage, images, texts and quotes that he encounters in his extensive internet research, Rafman edits this material to create poetic new narratives, while never concealing their source. Occasionally shocking and always engaging, his works force the viewer to enter into uncomfortable and unsettling psychological realms.

In 2015, Rafman will present a solo exhibition in his hometown at Musée D’Art Contemporain de Montreal. He has had two person shows with Keren Cytter at Feuer/Mesler, New York, and with Christian Jankowski at Future Gallery, Berlin. Previous solo exhibitions include The End of the End of The End, Contemporary Art Museum, St. Louis; Jon Rafman: Mainsqueeze, Plymouth Rock, Zurich; Hope Springs Eternal, and Hope Springs Eternal II, Galerie Antoine Ertaskiran, Toronto and Montreal (all 2014); Annals of Lost Time, Future Gallery, Berlin; You Are Standing in An Open Field, Zach Feuer Gallery, New York; A Man Digging, Seventeen Gallery, London (all 2013); Palais de Tokyo, Paris and The Nine Eyes of Google Street View, Saatchi Gallery, London (all 2012). His works have featured in numerous group exhibitions around the world, and notably in recent exhibitions examining the interface of digital culture and subjectivity including, in 2015 Digital Conditions, Kunstverein Hannover; The Future of Memory, Kunsthalle Wien; in 2014, The Digital Revolutionaries, Art Basel Miami Beach; Private Settings: Art After The Internet, MOMA Warsaw and Speculations on Anonymous Materials, Museum Fridericianum, Kassel. Residencies have included the White Building, Space Studios, London in 2013 and The Moving Museum, Istanbul in 2014.

He was nominated for the Victor Pinchuk Future Generation Art Prize in 2014, and is currently nominated for Canada’s prestigious Sobey Art Award.