20 Years of Art-o-mat

SECCA is proud to present a 20th anniversary retrospective of Art-o-mat.

Art-o-mat began in 1997 as a conceptual artwork by Winston-Salem artist Clark Whittington, repurposing cigarette vending machines to become dispensers for artist multiples, beginning with his own. Art-o-mat has since burgeoned into an international network of contributing artists, with collaborating host institutions, which invite the public to experience art collecting in a widely accessible and innovative way.

Over the years, Art-o-mat has become a resident fixture in many art venues nationally and internationally and the achievement of the project has been recognized in shows at SECCA, the Smithsonian American Art Museum, and through sprawling artist-collector networking events called art swaps. Machines have been installed in museums such as the Whitney Museum of American Art and the Museum of Fine Arts Boston, and at locations as far flung as Australia and Texas.

This 20-year retrospective exhibition will include an armada of Art-o-mat machines, inviting all to see how an Art-o-mat is put together and customized. It will present numerous miniature art works that are dispensed from the machines, including an array of limited edition multiples. It will also present larger-scale artworks by the artists who produce editions for Art-o-mat, made on site in our galleries.

Credit: Exhibition overview from museum website.