DUSSELDORF.- Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen will present the first solo exhibition in a Ger- man museum by internationally renowned artist Jon Rafman (*1981) at K21 from May 30 to September 27, 2026. The exhibition offers an overview of his work since 2008 and introduces Rafman as a pioneering artist of the digital age. With a sharp eye and dark humor, Rafman’s artistic practice explores how we, as a society, engage with the internet and its constant transformations. A first monographic publication will be released to accompany the exhibition.

For Susanne Gaensheimer, Director of the Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen, Jon Raf- man is one of the most significant artists of the digital age: “He creates works that use AI as a medium, among other things, and critically examine the ways in which AI affects people and society. With the Canadian artist’s first comprehensive solo exhibition in Germany, we are bringing central questions of the digital age into the museum: How are the Internet and digital technologies changing our society?”

Jon Rafman was born in Montreal in 1981 and lives in Los Angeles. After studying philoso- phy, literature, and film, he graduated from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2008. Rafman’s artistic practice combines masterfully narrated stories with fantastical, gro- tesque imagery and immersive spatial installations. Both enthusiastic and critical, he em- ploys computer-generated visual languages and adopts the latest digital technologies. A media-archaeological interest is evident in his engagement with the fate of virtual platforms such as “Second Life” and his ongoing project “Nine Eyes of Google Street View,” initiated in 2008.

The Art of the Digital Natives

Since the early days of Web 2.0 in the mid-2000s, the artistic generation of so-called digital natives has explored the internet as a field of artistic practice while critically observing how rapidly evolving digital technologies shape society. Rafman adopts a media-archaeological perspective as he revisits the individualized, user-generated chatrooms and message boards from the early internet era. Once highly frequented, these have largely been aban- doned in favor of centralized apps such as Snapchat and Instagram and now appear as desolate digital ruins. Rafman’s work holds a mirror up to this emptiness. Rather than ask- ing how far technology has progressed since the 2000s, he asks how profoundly we as a society have changed.

The exhibition “Main Stream Media” at K21 presents an overview of Rafman’s work in six chapters. Works from the past 18 years demonstrate how new technological tools—from specialized software and elements of video gaming to the use of AI—have shaped not only modes of production but also aesthetics, visual logics, and narrative forms. On view are early works such as “Kool-Aid Man in Second Life” (2008-2011), the three videos of the “Betamale Trilogy” (2013-2015), the four-part series of essay films created using video game engines (2013-2018), as well as—presented in a large cinema with humanoid lounge chairs—the feature-length videos “Dream Journal 2016–2019” (2019) and “Minor Daemon: Vol. I” (2021). The most recent work in the exhibition is the eponymous project “Main Stream Media Network” (2025-2026). Using music videos made with AI tools, it takes MTV, a defining cultural force of the 1980s and 1990s, as the last symbol of a shared cultural reality, and asks what 'mainstream' means after that reality has collapsed.

The immersive spatial design of the exhibition was developed in collaboration with the ar- chitecture studio Juvenilia. With printed wallpapers, curtains, tarps, carpets, built structures, props, and colored lighting, Rafman’s exhibition offers a varied experience that stands in deliberate contrast to the traditional museum white cube.

Jon Rafman’s exhibition “Main Stream Media” presents an outstanding contemporary artist.

It builds on earlier exhibitions at K21 featuring media-based practices such as Cao Fei
(2018/19), Ed Atkins (2019), Hito Steyerl (2020/21), and Simon Denny (2020/21), and ex- tends across the entire exhibition space on the lower level of K21 (1,100 sqm). Around the same time, the equally forward-looking exhibition “Starmirror” by Holly Herndon and Mat Dryhurst will be on view in the Bel Etage at K21 (June 27–October 11, 2026).

Curators: Karen Archey and Doris Krystof Curatorial Assistant: Sebastian Peter

Publication: The first monographic publication on Jon Rafman’s work (German/English), designed by Richard Turley, will be published by Hatje Cantz. It includes a foreword by Susanne Gaens- heimer, essays by Valentina Tanni and Doris Krystof, an interview with Rafman by Karen Archey, as well as video transcripts and numerous illustrations (eds. Karen Archey, Susanne Gaensheimer, Doris Krystof; approx. 300 pages, approx. €25).