bitforms gallery: digital art in New York

There are around 200 museums and about a thousand art galleries in New York — but only one (!) is fully dedicated to digital art. bitforms gallery is the oldest commercial gallery in the United States specializing exclusively in digital art and new media art.

The name is always written in lowercase: bitforms. It’s intentional — “bit” (the basic unit of information in the digital world) + “forms” (any artistic form). A manifesto in two words.

The Story Behind bitforms gallery

When the gallery opened in 2001, most collectors struggled to understand how one could even “own” a digital artwork — a file or a video.

The gallery’s owner, Steven Sacks, spent years building the necessary infrastructure: storage systems, certificates of authenticity, and hardware upgrades for proper display. So when the NFT boom hit in the early 2020s, Sacks became something of a legend in the world of digital copyright.

And even though we can hardly say the word “NFT” today without smiling, the digital art market continues to evolve and grow. For example, Marina Abramović recently mentioned in a lecture that she has started collecting digital art herself — not to mention the growing popularity of digital museums.

Jim Campbell Exhibition at bitforms gallery

Now through March 7, the gallery is showing work by Jim Campbell, who figured out how to turn an LED light bulb into a tool for exploring memory, perception, and what it means “to see.”

Campbell is the creator of “Day for Night” — a permanent LED installation across the top nine floors of the 61-story Salesforce Tower in San Francisco. At the time of its unveiling, it was the highest public artwork in the world, visible from 50 kilometers away.

I absolutely loved Jim’s works — they consist of low-resolution LED panels. Sometimes it’s literally just 165 light bulbs across the entire surface. Up close, you only see the bulbs slowly turning on and off, forming abstract patches of color. But step back — and your brain suddenly assembles the visual noise into a walking figure or an ocean wave.

And despite the “digital art” label — with its microprocessors and modern electronic components — his works evoke that warm, nostalgic glow. The simplicity and originality of the idea resonate especially deeply with anyone born in the ’80s.