Beeple reception

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Beeple

Two views of 'Diffuse Control' by Beeple.

Two views of 'Diffuse Control' by Beeple.

media release: Madison Museum of Contemporary Art (MMoCA) presents Diffuse Control by Beeple, an interactive kinetic sculpture by the internationally recognized, Wisconsin-native digital artist Beeple, that uses generative art technology to transform artworks from MMoCA's own permanent collection into a continuously evolving stream of generated imagery. On view September 19, 2026–January 10, 2027, this presentation marks Beeple's first major exhibition in his home state.

Opening Reception Saturday, September 19 • 7–10 PM; register here.

Celebrate the opening of Diffuse Control, Beeple’s first major presentation in Wisconsin, at a special evening reception at the Madison Museum of Contemporary Art. Enjoy food and drinks by executive chef Elena Terry from Tall Grass at MMoCA.

Diffuse Control comprises twelve synchronized video screens set into a polished aluminum structure with an internal mahogany frame, displaying a continuously changing sequence of generative video and sound. A companion mobile site lets visitors manipulate source images from the museum's collection and create new imagery in real time, turning every visitor who logs on into a collaborator in the work's ongoing creation.

Born in North Fond du Lac, Wisconsin, Beeple (Mike Winkelmann) has become one of the most prominent figures in digital art, known for his daily "everydays" practice and for the 2021 sale of Everydays: The First 5000 Days at Christie's for $69.3 million. Diffuse Control premiered at The Shed in New York in summer 2025, where its first iteration was curated by Hans Ulrich Obrist, Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev, and Deja Belardo. The work then traveled to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), where it was on view from October 2025 through January 2026. At LACMA, curatorial fellows built five new iterations from the museum's collection, drawing on works ranging from Paul Gauguin's The Swineherd to a 1580s Iznik tile panel from Turkey.

For its presentation at MMoCA, Diffuse Control's dataset is drawn from the museum's own permanent collection, selected by Gabriele Haberland Director Paul Baker Prindle. Eighteen works form the source material for this iteration, organized into three groupings. A Contemporary set includes paintings and works on paper by Wisconsin and Chicago-connected artists Gibson Byrd, John Wilde, Gertrude Abercrombie, Nancy Mladenoff, John Schacht, and Barbara Rossi, several of whom are associated with the surrealist and fantastical strains of Chicago-area art that MMoCA's collection is known for. Two Historical sets draw from the museum's Rudolph and Louise Langer bequest and other holdings, including Japanese woodblock prints by Utagawa Hiroshige, Utagawa Kuniyoshi, Utagawa Kunisada, and Kiyochika Kobayashi; an etching from Francisco Goya's Los Caprichos; and prints, drawings, and paintings by James McNeill Whistler, Rosa Bonheur, John Steuart Curry, and others. Visitors will have the ability to produce prints of the images they create while interacting with Diffuse Control.

Madison is increasingly shaped by software and medical technology companies who call the city home. Baker sees Diffuse Control as an opportunity for MMoCA to serve as a third space—a place, distinct from work or home, where the people building that technology and the broader community can gather around a shared question: what is the place of computers and generative technology in contemporary art? The sculpture will be installed in MMoCA's State Street sculpture court, where its slow, continuously shifting imagery invites the kind of sustained, repeated engagement that a single gallery visit does not.

"MMoCA has always aimed to be a third space; a place where people gather and think together, outside of work or home. In a city distinguished by software and medical technology firms and a University with exceptional computer science programs, it felt essential to ask what it means to put generative technology at the center of an artwork, and to do that in conversation with our community. We're placing Diffuse Control in our sculpture court, where visitors can sit with it the way it invites: slowly, and more than once. Artists have been asking what computers mean for art since the earliest machines. From Vera Molnár's algorithmic drawings in the 1960s, to Harold Cohen's AARON, to Stelarc's performances fusing the body and the machine, Beeple is part of an often misunderstood strain of contemporary art. As a contemporary art museum, we see it as our role to help bring together the coders, technologists, gamers, artists, and neighbors who make up this city, and to help define what computers mean for art now." — Paul Baker Prindle, Gabriele Haberland Director, Madison Museum of Contemporary Art

This presentation of Diffuse Control is made possible with support from Kanbas Collection and SupraNet Communications, Inc.