neen

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Neen was an art movement founded by Miltos Manetas and Mai Ueda in 2000. “Neensters”—Manetas’s internationally dispersed disciples—produced “single-serving” websites, mounted exhibitions in Los Angeles and Milan, (almost) staged interventions in New York City, and collaborated on numerous other projects. However, Neen was not a collective. Rather it was a response to art, culture, and life at a time when everything began to be distilled through screens.

Unlike most net art, Neen came from within the contemporary art world—Manetas was already recognized by commercial galleries and institutions when he invented Neen. Although Neen aimed to provoke and play with the structures of the commercial art world and commercial internet, the Neensters remained comfortable working within them. In this way, Neen artworks might be likened to painting in the latter half of the 20th century, content to self-reflexively explore their own conditions.