Coded: Art Enters the Computer Age, 1952-1982 at LACMA

Unlike many of the previous exhibitions at major museums that celebrated art and technology, Coded did not go so far as to showcase any contemporary practitioners of code-based art; however, the show was instrumental in recontextualizing and legitimizing four decades of history in art and technology. Coded highlighted how artists from 1952 to 1982 harnessed early computing technology. The exhibition, featuring 100 works by pioneers like Vera Molnár, Frieder Nake and Stan VanDerBeek, institutionalizes the evolution of generative practices and digital systems aesthetics. This landmark showcase, curated with historical precision by Leslie Jones, illustrates the foundational role of algorithmic, systems thinking and programming in the history of art. Anne and Michael Spalter provided work for the show through their Anne and Michael Spalter Digital Art Collection. The show was also largely supported by digital art patrons Carl & Marilynn Thoma, whose Thoma Foundation funds nearly every major digital art exhitition in the United States. Ultimately, Coded provided much absent contextualization to a movement long overlooked, while signaling the upswing in digital art’s evolving relationship with institutions.