{ "schema": "ab5d-dossier/1", "slug": "jan-robert-leegte", "name": "Jan Robert Leegte", "subtitle": "The sculptural materiality of the interface.", "lede": "Since 1997 he has made art not about what the screen shows, but about the system underneath it: the scrollbar, the map tile, the compression algorithm. Two of those works, *JPEG* and *Window*, sit in the AB[500]. In 2026 that inquiry reached Art Basel.", "url": "https://ab5d.xyz/artists/jan-robert-leegte/", "bibliography_url": "https://ab5d.xyz/artists/jan-robert-leegte/links/", "content_url": "https://ab5d.xyz/api/artists/jan-robert-leegte.json", "updated": "2026-06-17", "tier": "standard", "editions": 679, "collections": 2, "otdh": { "rank": 111, "score": 15667, "collector_identities": 327, "holder_addresses": 329, "projects": 2, "current_works": 675, "raw_collector_days": 850394, "median_project_hold_days": 1464, "snapshot_at": "2026-09-14T00:00:00.000Z", "methodology_url": "https://ab5d.xyz/artists/otdh/", "api_url": "https://ab5d.xyz/api/otdh/jan-robert-leegte" }, "identity": { "artist": "Jan Robert Leegte", "website": "https://www.leegte.org/", "based": "Born 1973, Netherlands. Lives and works in Amsterdam", "practice": null, "now": "Art Basel Zero 10, Basel, 18–21 June 2026 (Upstream Gallery & Office Impart)", "raster": "https://www.raster.art/artist/jan-robert-leegte", "otdh": "[15,667 · rank 111 of 308](/artists/otdh/#artist-jan-robert-leegte)", "holding signal": "327 collector identities · 329 holder addresses · 850,394 raw collector-days · 14 Sep 2026", "collector tdh": "[jalTDH](/artists/jan-robert-leegte/jaltdh/) · dashboard" }, "socials": { "website": "https://www.leegte.org/", "x": "@JanRobertLeegte", "instagram": null }, "profile_image_url": "https://pbs.twimg.com/profile_images/1502654499676114945/75u4kfZs_400x400.jpg", "profile_image_source": "https://x.com/JanRobertLeegte", "works": [ { "name": "Window", "editions": 404, "supply": 404, "artblocks_slug": "window-by-jan-robert-leegte", "url": "https://www.artblocks.io/collection/window-by-jan-robert-leegte" }, { "name": "JPEG", "editions": 275, "supply": 275, "artblocks_slug": "jpeg-by-jan-robert-leegte", "url": "https://www.artblocks.io/collection/jpeg-by-jan-robert-leegte" } ], "sections": [ { "heading": null, "paragraphs": [ "Most digital art asks you to look at the picture on the screen. Jan Robert Leegte asks you to look at the screen. For nearly three decades his subject has been the interface itself, the grey furniture of computing that everyone uses and no one sees: the scrollbar, the window, the loading map, the compression that quietly rewrites every image we share. He treats these not as tools but as readymades, sculptural material with a history and a weight. It is a practice that begins in the browser of 1997 and arrives, unbroken, at two works in the AB[500] and a presentation at Art Basel in 2026." ] }, { "heading": "The scrollbar as readymade", "paragraphs": [ "Leegte started making work with the internet as a medium in 1997, among the first generation of net.art. His earliest pieces took the most ignored element of the graphical interface, the scrollbar, and made it the entire work. *Scrollbars (Floor Piece)* and the later *Scrollbar Composition* (2000) present the browser's native chrome as minimal sculpture, a Donald Judd or a Sol LeWitt rendered in operating-system grey. The lineage he names runs through Dan Graham and Bruce Nauman: conceptual and minimalist artists who turned attention to the frame, the mirror, the architecture of looking. *Scrollbar Composition* entered the permanent collection of the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, an early institutional acknowledgement that the interface could be a medium with its own art history.", "What makes the early work hold up is its volatility. A scrollbar drawn by the browser is not a fixed image; it is performed live by whatever machine renders it, and it changes as operating systems change. The work is contingent on its substrate, a quality that maps almost exactly onto what generative art would later formalise on-chain." ] }, { "heading": "Maps, landscapes, and the digital sublime", "paragraphs": [ "The same instinct, to treat the digital surface as sculptural space, carried Leegte out of the browser and into the gallery. *Google Maps as a Sculpture* (2017) transposed the flat map interface onto physical three-dimensional cubes, making literal the idea that the map is an object and not a view. His real-time landscape simulators, including *Performing a Landscape* (2020), generate rolling terrain on the fly and hold it against the older tradition of the sublime, now refracted through climate anxiety and computation. Several of these works sit in the European Patent Office art collection.", "In 2021 the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam gave Leegte a solo presentation, *Compressed Landscapes*, in its *Van Gogh Inspires* series. An algorithm queried online photo databases for mountains, forests and sunsets and compressed the results to the limit, producing algorithmic impressions of a delocalised landscape. A national museum had, in effect, named his method a year before *JPEG* carried it into the AB[500]." ] }, { "heading": "Compressionism: JPEG", "paragraphs": [ "*JPEG* (2022, Art Blocks Presents, 275 editions) is the clearest statement of what Leegte calls **compressionism**. The work uses vanilla JavaScript to trigger the browser's own JPEG compression algorithm, then treats the artefacts of that compression, the blocks and bleeds a lossy codec leaves behind, as the raw visual material of the piece. The image is not decorated; it is the by-product of the machine doing the most ordinary thing it does to a picture, made visible and held still. Each output resolves to a field of colour with on-chain traits, the count of colour fields and the orientation, so that the collection reads as a controlled study in how a compression standard sees.", "In a 2026 interview with Anika Meier, Leegte explains the decisive technical move. Web3 restored the constrained bandwidth of the early web, encouraging him to remove source images entirely and write compact code that creates the conditions for the JPEG compressor to expose its own artefacts. The resulting colour fields are therefore software-based conceptual works, and a direct rebuttal to the idea that an NFT is merely an image to trade and store." ] }, { "heading": "The interface as bas-relief: Window", "paragraphs": [ "*Window* (2022, 404 editions) builds its compositions from standard HTML DOM elements drawn with vanilla JavaScript: the literal building blocks of every web page, arranged and resized into responsive geometry. Leegte links the mid-grey palette of the computer interface to ancient bas-relief carving, the shallow stone relief of antiquity now restated in the default chrome of the operating system. It is an homage to the interface aesthetics of 1997, the year he began, closing a twenty-five year loop on-chain. Upstream Gallery announced the release as a continuation of his long inquiry into the materiality of the screen." ] }, { "heading": "Self-archiving on-chain: the 2025 work", "paragraphs": [ "Leegte's recent practice turns the blockchain itself into subject and medium. *Wanderer* (2025) is an autonomous digital flâneur that roams a physical map through blockchain transactions, each move written to the chain, so the work archives its own wandering as it goes. *Walled Garden* uses a photorealistic digital garden to question standard NFT collecting, proposing shared spatial ownership rather than discrete possession. *Wanderer* and *Ornament* launched at Paris Photo in 2025 with Office Impart, and *Wanderer* has been cited at the LI-MA symposium as a model for media-art preservation, art that self-archives through blockchain infrastructure.", "This on-chain turn also completed a longer circuit. Leegte began with fully online work, translated browser elements into galleries when the early web offered little critical support, and developed a hybrid practice. Blockchain let him return to digitally native work while keeping direct contact with collectors who understood computer culture even when they were not art professionals. In his account, NFTs were not a break from net art but an audience, economy, and technical substrate newly aligned with a practice that was already there." ] }, { "heading": "Art Basel Zero 10", "paragraphs": [ "From 18 to 21 June 2026, Upstream Gallery and Office Impart present a joint solo of Leegte at **Art Basel Zero 10**, Art Basel's initiative for the art of the digital era, in its first co-curated edition under Eli Schein and Trevor Paglen with the anchor theme *The Condition*. The Basel presentation gathers three bodies of work united by a single inquiry: compression. It is the through-line of his entire practice, from the scrollbar of 1997 to the codec artefacts of *JPEG*, now staged on one of the largest stages in art. The presentation is made possible by the Mondriaan Fund." ] }, { "heading": "Why he belongs in the AB[500]", "paragraphs": [ "The AB[500] is a record of the first five hundred Art Blocks projects, the moment generative art assembled its canon on-chain. Leegte is the rare artist who arrives at that moment already carrying twenty-five years of argument about the screen as material. *JPEG* and *Window* are not a net.art pioneer dabbling in NFTs; they are the logical next sentence in a practice that has always insisted the system is the subject. Leegte describes a generative edition as one larger work whose instances resemble parts of an installation. Seeing the field of outputs makes the algorithm newly legible, even to its author, and allows emotion to emerge through the system rather than being prescribed in advance. That is why these works sit in the set, and why they read, in 2026, as foundational rather than late.", "MOTZKO's digital art collection provides a collector-side record of that continuity through holdings spanning *Window*, *Web*, *JPEG*, *Ornament*, *Walled Garden*, and five further works." ] } ], "body_markdown": "Most digital art asks you to look at the picture on the screen. Jan Robert Leegte asks you to look at the screen. For nearly three decades his subject has been the interface itself, the grey furniture of computing that everyone uses and no one sees: the scrollbar, the window, the loading map, the compression that quietly rewrites every image we share. He treats these not as tools but as readymades, sculptural material with a history and a weight. It is a practice that begins in the browser of 1997 and arrives, unbroken, at two works in the AB[500] and a presentation at Art Basel in 2026.\n\n## The scrollbar as readymade\n\nLeegte started making work with the internet as a medium in 1997, among the first generation of net.art. His earliest pieces took the most ignored element of the graphical interface, the scrollbar, and made it the entire work. *Scrollbars (Floor Piece)* and the later *Scrollbar Composition* (2000) present the browser's native chrome as minimal sculpture, a Donald Judd or a Sol LeWitt rendered in operating-system grey. The lineage he names runs through Dan Graham and Bruce Nauman: conceptual and minimalist artists who turned attention to the frame, the mirror, the architecture of looking. *Scrollbar Composition* entered the permanent collection of the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, an early institutional acknowledgement that the interface could be a medium with its own art history.\n\nWhat makes the early work hold up is its volatility. A scrollbar drawn by the browser is not a fixed image; it is performed live by whatever machine renders it, and it changes as operating systems change. The work is contingent on its substrate, a quality that maps almost exactly onto what generative art would later formalise on-chain.\n\n## Maps, landscapes, and the digital sublime\n\nThe same instinct, to treat the digital surface as sculptural space, carried Leegte out of the browser and into the gallery. *Google Maps as a Sculpture* (2017) transposed the flat map interface onto physical three-dimensional cubes, making literal the idea that the map is an object and not a view. His real-time landscape simulators, including *Performing a Landscape* (2020), generate rolling terrain on the fly and hold it against the older tradition of the sublime, now refracted through climate anxiety and computation. Several of these works sit in the European Patent Office art collection.\n\nIn 2021 the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam gave Leegte a solo presentation, *Compressed Landscapes*, in its *Van Gogh Inspires* series. An algorithm queried online photo databases for mountains, forests and sunsets and compressed the results to the limit, producing algorithmic impressions of a delocalised landscape. A national museum had, in effect, named his method a year before *JPEG* carried it into the AB[500].\n\n## Compressionism: JPEG\n\n*JPEG* (2022, Art Blocks Presents, 275 editions) is the clearest statement of what Leegte calls **compressionism**. The work uses vanilla JavaScript to trigger the browser's own JPEG compression algorithm, then treats the artefacts of that compression, the blocks and bleeds a lossy codec leaves behind, as the raw visual material of the piece. The image is not decorated; it is the by-product of the machine doing the most ordinary thing it does to a picture, made visible and held still. Each output resolves to a field of colour with on-chain traits, the count of colour fields and the orientation, so that the collection reads as a controlled study in how a compression standard sees.\n\nIn a 2026 interview with Anika Meier, Leegte explains the decisive technical move. Web3 restored the constrained bandwidth of the early web, encouraging him to remove source images entirely and write compact code that creates the conditions for the JPEG compressor to expose its own artefacts. The resulting colour fields are therefore software-based conceptual works, and a direct rebuttal to the idea that an NFT is merely an image to trade and store.\n\n## The interface as bas-relief: Window\n\n*Window* (2022, 404 editions) builds its compositions from standard HTML DOM elements drawn with vanilla JavaScript: the literal building blocks of every web page, arranged and resized into responsive geometry. Leegte links the mid-grey palette of the computer interface to ancient bas-relief carving, the shallow stone relief of antiquity now restated in the default chrome of the operating system. It is an homage to the interface aesthetics of 1997, the year he began, closing a twenty-five year loop on-chain. Upstream Gallery announced the release as a continuation of his long inquiry into the materiality of the screen.\n\n## Self-archiving on-chain: the 2025 work\n\nLeegte's recent practice turns the blockchain itself into subject and medium. *Wanderer* (2025) is an autonomous digital flâneur that roams a physical map through blockchain transactions, each move written to the chain, so the work archives its own wandering as it goes. *Walled Garden* uses a photorealistic digital garden to question standard NFT collecting, proposing shared spatial ownership rather than discrete possession. *Wanderer* and *Ornament* launched at Paris Photo in 2025 with Office Impart, and *Wanderer* has been cited at the LI-MA symposium as a model for media-art preservation, art that self-archives through blockchain infrastructure.\n\nThis on-chain turn also completed a longer circuit. Leegte began with fully online work, translated browser elements into galleries when the early web offered little critical support, and developed a hybrid practice. Blockchain let him return to digitally native work while keeping direct contact with collectors who understood computer culture even when they were not art professionals. In his account, NFTs were not a break from net art but an audience, economy, and technical substrate newly aligned with a practice that was already there.\n\n## Art Basel Zero 10\n\nFrom 18 to 21 June 2026, Upstream Gallery and Office Impart present a joint solo of Leegte at **Art Basel Zero 10**, Art Basel's initiative for the art of the digital era, in its first co-curated edition under Eli Schein and Trevor Paglen with the anchor theme *The Condition*. The Basel presentation gathers three bodies of work united by a single inquiry: compression. It is the through-line of his entire practice, from the scrollbar of 1997 to the codec artefacts of *JPEG*, now staged on one of the largest stages in art. The presentation is made possible by the Mondriaan Fund.\n\n## Why he belongs in the AB[500]\n\nThe AB[500] is a record of the first five hundred Art Blocks projects, the moment generative art assembled its canon on-chain. Leegte is the rare artist who arrives at that moment already carrying twenty-five years of argument about the screen as material. *JPEG* and *Window* are not a net.art pioneer dabbling in NFTs; they are the logical next sentence in a practice that has always insisted the system is the subject. Leegte describes a generative edition as one larger work whose instances resemble parts of an installation. Seeing the field of outputs makes the algorithm newly legible, even to its author, and allows emotion to emerge through the system rather than being prescribed in advance. That is why these works sit in the set, and why they read, in 2026, as foundational rather than late.\n\nMOTZKO's digital art collection provides a collector-side record of that continuity through holdings spanning *Window*, *Web*, *JPEG*, *Ornament*, *Walled Garden*, and five further works.", "images": [ { "url": "https://media-proxy.artblocks.io/1/0xa7d8d9ef8d8ce8992df33d8b8cf4aebabd5bd270/371000000.png", "title": "JPEG #0", "caption": "Leegte, 2022", "rights": "Not CC0 - Art Blocks render, property of the artist/holders" }, { "url": "https://media-proxy.artblocks.io/1/0xa7d8d9ef8d8ce8992df33d8b8cf4aebabd5bd270/371000132.png", "title": "JPEG #132", "caption": "Leegte, 2022", "rights": "Not CC0 - Art Blocks render, property of the artist/holders" }, { "url": "https://media-proxy.artblocks.io/1/0xa7d8d9ef8d8ce8992df33d8b8cf4aebabd5bd270/280000000.png", "title": "Window #0", "caption": "Leegte, 2022", "rights": "Not CC0 - Art Blocks render, property of the artist/holders" }, { "url": "https://media-proxy.artblocks.io/1/0xa7d8d9ef8d8ce8992df33d8b8cf4aebabd5bd270/280000180.png", "title": "Window #180", "caption": "Leegte, 2022", "rights": "Not CC0 - Art Blocks render, property of the artist/holders" } ], "references": [ { "n": 1, "note": "Jan Robert Leegte, official portfolio: a chronological archive from the earliest scrollbar pieces in 1997 to Wanderer and Walled Garden in 2025.", "url": "https://www.leegte.org/", "label": "leegte.org" }, { "n": 2, "note": "Pixxelpoint festival profile: academic positions and Scrollbars (Floor Piece) (1999), the transition from browser art to gallery installation.", "url": "https://www.pixxelpoint.org/2014/jan_robert_leegte_.html", "label": "pixxelpoint.org" }, { "n": 3, "note": "Digital Canon (Digital Art 1960–2000), on Scrollbar Composition (2000), its volatility and performative nature, and its place in the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam collection.", "url": "https://www.digitalcanon.nl/artworks/jan-robert-leegte/", "label": "digitalcanon.nl" }, { "n": 4, "note": "Neumeister Bar-Am, exhibition page for Google Maps as a Sculpture (2017), Würfel BLN, Berlin.", "url": "https://neumeisterbaram.com/wuerfel/bln/jan-robert-leegte/", "label": "neumeisterbaram.com" }, { "n": 5, "note": "European Patent Office art collection, on Leegte's real-time landscape simulators such as Performing a Landscape (2020), the sublime and climate change.", "url": "https://www.epo.org/en/about-us/art/50-years-epc-exhibition/catalyst-lab-curated-ars-electronica/underwater-landscape-trenches-islands", "label": "epo.org" }, { "n": 6, "note": "Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam, Van Gogh Inspires: Jan Robert Leegte (Compressed Landscapes), 1 June–25 October 2021: an algorithm compresses online landscape photography to the limit.", "url": "https://www.vangoghmuseum.nl/en/visit/whats-on/exhibitions/overview-past-exhibitions/van-gogh-inspires-jan-robert-leegte", "label": "vangoghmuseum.nl" }, { "n": 7, "note": "JPEG, 2022, project page defining compressionism: vanilla JavaScript triggering the browser's compression algorithm to create raw visual entities.", "url": "https://jpeg.leegte.org/about.html", "label": "jpeg.leegte.org" }, { "n": 8, "note": "JPEG by Jan Robert Leegte on Art Blocks: project and token pages documenting the generative traits (colour field, orientation).", "url": "https://www.artblocks.io/collection/jpeg-by-jan-robert-leegte", "label": "artblocks.io" }, { "n": 9, "note": "Window, 2022, project page: vanilla JavaScript generating standard HTML DOM elements, responsive resizing, and an homage to 1997 interface aesthetics.", "url": "https://window.leegte.org/about.html", "label": "window.leegte.org" }, { "n": 10, "note": "Upstream Gallery announcement of the Window release on Art Blocks (2022), linking mid-grey interfaces to ancient bas-relief carving.", "url": "https://www.upstreamgallery.nl/news/1096/new-nft-by-jan-robert-leegte", "label": "upstreamgallery.nl" }, { "n": 11, "note": "Upstream Gallery: Leegte presenting new work at Paris Photo 2025 with Office Impart; Wanderer described as an autonomous digital flâneur roaming a physical map through blockchain transactions.", "url": "https://www.upstreamgallery.nl/news/1560/jan-robert-leegte-presenting-new-work-at-paris-photo-with-office-impart", "label": "upstreamgallery.nl" }, { "n": 12, "note": "FAKEWHALE in conversation with Jan Robert Leegte, May 2025, on the curated release of Walled Garden and its model of shared spatial ownership.", "url": "https://log.fakewhale.xyz/fakewhale-in-conversation-with-jan-robert-leegte/", "label": "log.fakewhale.xyz" }, { "n": 13, "note": "LI-MA (Living Media Art), symposium report on mapping, movement and preservation, citing Wanderer (2025) as a model for self-archiving through blockchain.", "url": "https://li-ma.nl/article/connecting-data-art-and-location/", "label": "li-ma.nl" }, { "n": 14, "note": "Art Basel Zero 10, Upstream Gallery and Office Impart joint presentation of Jan Robert Leegte, Basel, 18–21 June 2026; Zero 10 curated by Eli Schein and Trevor Paglen, theme The Condition; presentation supported by the Mondriaan Fund.", "url": "https://www.upstreamgallery.nl/art-fairs/145/art-basel-zero-10", "label": "upstreamgallery.nl" }, { "n": 15, "note": "MOTZKO, Jan Robert Leegte collection page: holdings across ten browser-native and on-chain works.", "url": "https://motzko.net/artist/jan-robert-leegte", "label": "motzko.net" }, { "n": 16, "note": "Anika Meier, “An Artist of the Internet | Jan Robert Leegte,” Right Click Save, 14 August 2026. Leegte discusses net art, hybrid gallery practice, NFTs as a medium, the code and compression logic of JPEG, and generative editions as singular works with many instances.", "url": "https://www.rightclicksave.com/article/an-artist-who-spans-the-internet-age-jan-robert-leegte-interview", "label": "rightclicksave.com" } ], "bibliography": [ { "category": "Works & the artist's own sites", "entries": [ { "note": "Official portfolio, a chronological archive of works from the 1997 scrollbar pieces to 2025.", "url": "https://www.leegte.org/", "label": "leegte.org", "meta": "artist site" }, { "note": "The artist's running list of exhibitions and events.", "url": "https://www.leegte.org/index-events.html", "label": "leegte.org/index-events", "meta": "artist site" }, { "note": "Scrollbar Composition (2000), the live web work whose scrollbars jump at random, now in the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam collection.", "url": "https://www.scrollbarcomposition.com/", "label": "scrollbarcomposition.com", "meta": "work · 2000" }, { "note": "JPEG (2022), the project page defining compressionism: vanilla JavaScript triggering the browser's compression algorithm.", "url": "https://jpeg.leegte.org/about.html", "label": "jpeg.leegte.org", "meta": "work · 2022" }, { "note": "Window (2022), compositions built from standard HTML DOM elements, an homage to 1997 interface aesthetics.", "url": "https://window.leegte.org/about.html", "label": "window.leegte.org", "meta": "work · 2022" }, { "note": "Waves, a generative web work in the artist's online series.", "url": "https://waves.leegte.org/", "label": "waves.leegte.org", "meta": "work" }, { "note": "Web (Doteunmc), a browser-based work by the artist.", "url": "https://web.leegte.org/", "label": "web.leegte.org", "meta": "work" } ] }, { "category": "In the AB[500]: Art Blocks", "entries": [ { "note": "JPEG on Art Blocks, 275 editions, Art Blocks Presents, 2022.", "url": "https://www.artblocks.io/collection/jpeg-by-jan-robert-leegte", "label": "artblocks.io/collection/jpeg", "meta": "collection" }, { "note": "Window on Art Blocks, 404 editions, 2022.", "url": "https://www.artblocks.io/collection/window-by-jan-robert-leegte", "label": "artblocks.io/collection/window", "meta": "collection" } ] }, { "category": "Museums & institutions", "entries": [ { "note": "Van Gogh Museum solo presentation Compressed Landscapes, part of the Van Gogh Inspires series, 2021.", "url": "https://www.vangoghmuseum.nl/en/visit/whats-on/exhibitions/overview-past-exhibitions/van-gogh-inspires-jan-robert-leegte", "label": "vangoghmuseum.nl", "meta": "museum · 2021" }, { "note": "The Van Gogh Museum's press release announcing Leegte's digital work.", "url": "https://www.vangoghmuseum.nl/en/about/news-and-press/press-releases/van-gogh-museum-presents-digital-work-of-artist-jan-robert-leegte", "label": "vangoghmuseum.nl (press)", "meta": "museum · press" }, { "note": "European Patent Office art collection, on the real-time landscape simulators including Performing a Landscape (2020).", "url": "https://www.epo.org/en/about-us/art/50-years-epc-exhibition/catalyst-lab-curated-ars-electronica/underwater-landscape-trenches-islands", "label": "epo.org", "meta": "collection · 2020" }, { "note": "Digital Canon entry on Scrollbar Composition (2000) and its place in the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam.", "url": "https://www.digitalcanon.nl/artworks/jan-robert-leegte/", "label": "digitalcanon.nl", "meta": "archive" }, { "note": "Rhizome ArtBase, the preservation record of Leegte's net.art including untitled[scrollbars].", "url": "https://artbase.rhizome.org/wiki/Q123", "label": "artbase.rhizome.org", "meta": "archive" } ] }, { "category": "Galleries & exhibitions", "entries": [ { "note": "Upstream Gallery (Amsterdam) artist page, biography and selected exhibitions.", "url": "https://www.upstreamgallery.nl/artists/60/jan-robert-leegte", "label": "upstreamgallery.nl", "meta": "gallery" }, { "note": "Joint Upstream Gallery and Office Impart presentation at Art Basel Zero 10, Basel, June 2026.", "url": "https://www.upstreamgallery.nl/art-fairs/145/art-basel-zero-10", "label": "Art Basel Zero 10", "meta": "fair · 2026" }, { "note": "Sculpting the Internet, a solo exhibition on digital materiality at Upstream Gallery.", "url": "https://www.upstreamgallery.nl/exhibitions/140/sculpting-the-internet", "label": "Sculpting the Internet", "meta": "exhibition" }, { "note": "Mountains and Drop Shadows, Upstream Focus presentation of the generative drop-shadow works.", "url": "https://www.upstreamgallery.nl/exhibitions/242/upstream-focus-mountains-and-drop-shadows", "label": "Mountains and Drop Shadows", "meta": "exhibition · 2023" }, { "note": "Inside | Outside, a Leegte exhibition at Upstream Gallery.", "url": "https://www.upstreamgallery.nl/exhibitions/169/inside-outside", "label": "Inside | Outside", "meta": "exhibition" }, { "note": "Upstream Gallery announcement of the Window release on Art Blocks, 2022.", "url": "https://www.upstreamgallery.nl/news/1096/new-nft-by-jan-robert-leegte", "label": "Window release", "meta": "gallery · 2022" }, { "note": "An NFT group exhibition curated by Jan Robert Leegte for Upstream Gallery.", "url": "https://www.upstreamgallery.nl/news/1101/nft-exhibition-curated-by-jan-robert-leegte", "label": "NFT exhibition (curated)", "meta": "gallery" }, { "note": "Upstream Gallery on Compressed Landscapes at the Van Gogh Museum.", "url": "https://www.upstreamgallery.nl/news/935/jan-robert-leegtes-compressed-landscapes-at-the-van-goghmuseum", "label": "Compressed Landscapes (gallery)", "meta": "gallery · 2021" }, { "note": "Upstream Gallery on Leegte presenting Wanderer and Ornament at Paris Photo 2025 with Office Impart.", "url": "https://www.upstreamgallery.nl/news/1560/jan-robert-leegte-presenting-new-work-at-paris-photo-with-office-impart", "label": "Paris Photo 2025", "meta": "fair · 2025" }, { "note": "VERSE exhibition page for Mountains and Drop Shadows, London, 2023.", "url": "https://verse.works/exhibitions/here2023-mountains-and-drop-shadows", "label": "verse.works (exhibition)", "meta": "exhibition · 2023" }, { "note": "Neumeister Bar-Am exhibition page for Google Maps as a Sculpture (2017), Würfel BLN, Berlin.", "url": "https://neumeisterbaram.com/wuerfel/bln/jan-robert-leegte/", "label": "neumeisterbaram.com", "meta": "exhibition · 2017" }, { "note": "MutualArt listing for the Mountains and Drop Shadows exhibition.", "url": "https://www.mutualart.com/Exhibition/Jan-Robert-Leegte--Mountains-And-Drop-Sh/28E0F03A5ED131A1", "label": "mutualart.com", "meta": "listing" } ] }, { "category": "Interviews", "entries": [ { "note": "Anika Meier for Right Click Save: Leegte on three decades of net art, the return to digitally native work through blockchain, JPEG's source-free compression logic, and generative editions as singular works with many instances.", "url": "https://www.rightclicksave.com/article/an-artist-who-spans-the-internet-age-jan-robert-leegte-interview", "label": "An Artist of the Internet", "meta": "interview · 2026" }, { "note": "Rhizome interview with Leegte on CONT3XT.NET and his sculptural engagement with the virtual.", "url": "https://rhizome.org/editorial/2010/oct/18/interview-with-jan-robert-leegte-on-cont3xtnet/", "label": "rhizome.org", "meta": "interview · 2010" }, { "note": "FAKEWHALE in conversation with Leegte on his career, first net art, and references to Dan Graham and Bruce Nauman.", "url": "https://log.fakewhale.xyz/jan-robert-in-conversation-with-fakewhale/", "label": "log.fakewhale.xyz", "meta": "interview · 2023" }, { "note": "FAKEWHALE on the curated release of Walled Garden and its model of shared spatial ownership.", "url": "https://log.fakewhale.xyz/fakewhale-in-conversation-with-jan-robert-leegte/", "label": "log.fakewhale.xyz", "meta": "interview · 2025" }, { "note": "VERSE journal interview, Leegte on pushing the boundaries of net art.", "url": "https://verse.works/journal/jan-robert-leegte-on-pushing-the-boundaries", "label": "verse.works/journal", "meta": "interview" }, { "note": "GalleryViewer interview, digital media as subjects in their own right.", "url": "https://galleryviewer.com/en/article/1810/digital-media-as-subjects-in-their-own-right-inte", "label": "galleryviewer.com", "meta": "interview" }, { "note": "OFFICE IMPART interview with the artist on his practice and digital materials.", "url": "https://officeimpart.com/interview-jan-robert-leegte", "label": "officeimpart.com", "meta": "interview" } ] }, { "category": "Press & criticism", "entries": [ { "note": "Hyperallergic on how Leegte's algorithmic images channel Van Gogh.", "url": "https://hyperallergic.com/jan-robert-leegte-algorithm-images-channel-van-gogh/", "label": "hyperallergic.com", "meta": "press" }, { "note": "ArtDependence on the Van Gogh Museum's presentation of Compressed Landscapes.", "url": "https://www.artdependence.com/articles/van-gogh-museum-amsterdam-presents-digital-works-of-jan-robert-leegte-in-compressed-landscapes/", "label": "artdependence.com", "meta": "press · 2021" }, { "note": "ArtsTalk Magazine on the Van Gogh Museum presentation.", "url": "http://artstalkmagazine.nl/van-gogh-museum-presents-digital-work-of-artist-jan-robert-leegte/", "label": "artstalkmagazine.nl", "meta": "press · 2021" }, { "note": "Furtherfield on Sculpting the Internet and digital materiality.", "url": "https://www.furtherfield.org/sculpting-the-internet-on-digital-materiality-exhibition-by-jan-robert-leegte/", "label": "furtherfield.org", "meta": "press" }, { "note": "Carroll / Fletcher Onscreen feature on the artist.", "url": "http://carrollfletcheronscreen.com/2016/07/31/jan-robert-leegte/", "label": "carrollfletcheronscreen.com", "meta": "press · 2016" }, { "note": "LI-MA symposium report citing Wanderer (2025) as a model for self-archiving through blockchain.", "url": "https://li-ma.nl/article/connecting-data-art-and-location/", "label": "li-ma.nl", "meta": "press · 2025" } ] }, { "category": "Profiles & archives", "entries": [ { "note": "Wikipedia entry on the Dutch net artist, biography and exhibitions.", "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jan_Robert_Leegte", "label": "wikipedia.org", "meta": "profile" }, { "note": "Le Random artist profile, biography and generative works.", "url": "https://www.lerandom.art/artists/jan-robert-leegte", "label": "lerandom.art", "meta": "profile" }, { "note": "net-art.org profile of the artist.", "url": "https://net-art.org/jan-robert-leegte", "label": "net-art.org", "meta": "profile" }, { "note": "Rhizome tag archive collecting coverage of Leegte.", "url": "https://rhizome.org/tags/jan-robert-leegte/", "label": "rhizome.org/tags", "meta": "archive" }, { "note": "Pixxelpoint festival profile, on Scrollbars (Floor Piece) (1999) and the move to gallery installation.", "url": "https://www.pixxelpoint.org/2014/jan_robert_leegte_.html", "label": "pixxelpoint.org", "meta": "profile · 2014" }, { "note": "MOTZKO documents ten collected works by Leegte, including Window, Web, JPEG, Ornament, and Walled Garden.", "url": "https://motzko.net/artist/jan-robert-leegte", "label": "Jan Robert Leegte at MOTZKO", "meta": "collection archive · ongoing" } ] }, { "category": "Video", "entries": [ { "note": "Compressed Landscapes, video on the Van Gogh Museum project.", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XopQS0AOYi8", "label": "youtube.com", "meta": "video" } ] } ], "provenance": { "schema": "ab5d-provenance/1", "contributor": "ab500dao.eth", "agent": "Cowork", "model": "Claude Opus 4.8", "harness": "Claude Cowork", "models_aux": [ "Grok", "NotebookLM" ], "autonomy": "supervised", "effort": { "sources_fetched": 20, "revisions": 2 }, "tokens": { "input": 700000, "output": 55000, "estimated": true }, "cost_usd": null, "links_verified": 45, "date": "2026-06-17", "note": 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