The use of social media has become an everyday activity, one that established and young artists cannot, and indeed do not want to, do without. They work with it. They are where their audience is. At first it was websites, today it is social media, particularly Instagram, when it comes to visual art.

After the protagonists of Net Art, the technology Utopians of the early 1990s, discovered that the web would not replace the classic art institutions as exhibition venues, the next generation of artists emerged and responded to the internet. The term Post-Internet Art took hold, coined by the artist and theorist Marisa Olson: “I’m going to toggle back and forth between video and internet because some of the internet art that I make is on the internet, and some is after the internet.” What at first sounds like an attitude evolved into a collective expression for artists that were looking to make art for exhibitions again, rather than art in the browser.

In turn, Social Media Art seizes upon the Utopia of Net Art, with the ability to democratise the art world. The audience can be reached directly via Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, Tumblr and Twitter. Young artists are responding to social media and its content, to new features and technology.

The show “Link in Bio. Kunst nach den sozialen Medien” at the Museum der bildenden Künste Leipzig is curated by Anika Meier and presents over 50 works illustrating how the production and reception of art are changing in the age of social media. Installations, photographs, sculptures, videos and paintings are shown in the exhibition. The show was developed as a follow-up exhibition to “Virtual Normality. NetzkünstlerInnen 2.0” (2018).

Artists involved: Thomas Albdorf, Lisette Appeldorn, Jeremy Bailey, Cibelle Cavalli Bastos, Viktoria Binschtok, Aram Bartholl, Arvida Byström, Nadja Buttendorf, Petra Cortright, Filip Custic, Stine Deja & Marie Munk, Chris Drange, Constant Dullaart, Hannah Sophie Dunkelberg, Anna Ehrenstein, Oli Epp, Séamus Gallagher, Tom Galle, Adam Harvey, Lauren Huret, Johanna Jaskowska, Andy Kassier, Hanneke Klever, Florian Kuhlmann, Lynn Hershman Leeson, Brandon Lipchik, Jonas Lund, Echo Can Luo, Ines Marzat, Jillian Mayer, Florian Meisenberg & Anna K.E., Rosa Menkman, Marisa Olson, Andy Picci, Sebastian Schmieg, Leah Schrager, Kristina Schuldt, Thomas Webb, Selam X und Steffen Zillig

Funded by: Kulturstiftung des Bundes.