Beeple: INFINITE_LOOP Opens at NODE Foundation in Palo Alto: What You Need to Know
12 Apr 2026
What Is It?
NODE Foundation presents BEEPLE: / INFINITE_LOOP, a mid-career survey of the work of Mike Winkelmann, known globally as Beeple. The exhibition opening is scheduled for Saturday, April 18, 2026, from 7:00 PM to midnight at 180 University Avenue, Palo Alto, CA.
The exhibition opening night features activations including a live Everyday creation, a Human One changeover ceremony, and interactive performances throughout the space.
Who Is Mike Winkelmann (Beeple)?
Michael Joseph Winkelmann, born June 20, 1981, is an American digital artist, graphic designer, and animator. In his art, he uses various media to create works that make political and social commentary while drawing on pop culture figures as references.
Born in Wisconsin, Winkelmann graduated with a computer science degree but harbored creative aspirations. In 2007, he started what would become his defining project: creating and sharing one piece of digital art every single day. He started calling himself "Beeple" in 2003, a name pulled from an 80s toy he liked.
BBefore breaking into the fine art world, Winkelmann built a substantial career in live visuals and commercials. His large library of VJ loops, short, seamlessly repeating clips released under Creative Commons licences, led to commissions for stage and concert visuals for performers including Justin Bieber, Katy Perry, Nicki Minaj, Eminem, and deadmau5, extending his aesthetic into stadium-scale settings.
The turning point came in March 2021. Christie's auction house sold Beeple's Everydays: The First 5000 Days for $69.3 million, making it the third most expensive artwork by a living artist ever sold at auction. The sale was conducted as an NFT, bringing the concept to public consciousness and legitimising a new way for digital artists to monetise their work.
Later that same year, Beeple unveiled Human One, a kinetic video sculpture consisting of a roughly two-metre-tall column with LED screens on four sides displaying a looping sequence of a lone figure walking through changing environments. The work was sold at Christie's in November 2021 for over $28 million, accompanied by an NFT. Beeple retains the ability to remotely alter the virtual environment, treating Human One as an artwork that changes over time.
In 2021, Beeple began building a team and working in various locations in Charleston, South Carolina, eventually establishing Beeple Studios , a 50,000 sq ft space housing offices, lab spaces, a white wall gallery, and an immersive experiential space described as "a weird mix of Warhol's studio and Bell Labs." Wikipedia
Today, Winkelmann's Everydays project has spanned more than 5,900 consecutive days of digital art creation, with his work resonating with over 2.3 million Instagram followers.
The Works on View
The exhibition brings together several major pieces:
- Diffuse Control (2025) : A three-storey tower that unfolds in real time across 12 screens.
- Diffuse Control also carries a deeper conceptual dimension: through a physical dial, viewers oscillate between two realities, signal (a serene, long-term perspective) and noise (an overwhelming deluge of real-time data). A hidden "choose violence" button transforms the work into a dystopian vision, but it can only be pressed 666 times before permanently locking the piece in that state.
- Transient Bloom (2024) — An interactive evolving kinetic sculpture across four video screens with real-time generative video and sound. The work recreates a lush, ever-changing garden where icons of digital culture and internet commerce are embedded as statues and structures in an organic landscape.
- Regular Animals — Perhaps the most buzzworthy new work. Beeple deployed four-legged, flesh-colored autonomous robots topped with the heads of tech billionaires including Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, and Jeff Bezos around San Francisco's SOMA neighborhood as a lead-up to the exhibition. The piece was first unveiled at Art Basel Miami.
The show also includes Human One and Tree of Knowledge, among others.
The INFINITE_LOOP Concept
Artist Mike Winkelmann describes the assembly of two decades of his work as more than a retrospective, focusing on "how repetition becomes a kind of infinity." The exhibition extends this principle beyond the artist himself, inviting visitors to exhibit their own digital artworks alongside the main installation, blurring the line between spectator and creator.
About NODE Foundation
NODE is a new non-profit space founded by investors and art collectors Micky Malka and Becky Kleiner, located in the heart of Silicon Valley. The NODE Foundation was inaugurated in January 2026 with 10,000, an exhibition centered on Larva Labs' CryptoPunks. NODE is a nonprofit foundation dedicated to transforming how digital art is experienced — built with artists, by artists, and for artists.
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Sara Srifi
Sara is a Software Engineering and Business student with a passion for astronomy, cultural studies, and human-centered storytelling. She explores the quiet intersections between science, identity, and imagination, reflecting on how space, art, and society shape the way we understand ourselves and the world around us. Her writing draws on curiosity and lived experience to bridge disciplines and spark dialogue across cultures.
