A search for “AI art” may be a search for works, tools, history or criticism. This archive addresses art-historical questions: how artificial intelligence enters artistic production and display, how practitioners describe their work, and how positions on labour, permission and artistic value take shape.
View full image ↗Harold Cohen, AARON KCAT (2001), software screenshot reproduced on Whitney’s retrospective page. It illustrates the continuing AARON practice, not an image from 1969.
© Harold Cohen Trust / Whitney Museum of American Art
Source · AARON ↗Research needs to identify the particular practice rather than group everything that has used AI into one category.
How can “Can AI make art?” become a research question? ↗Break the value judgment into questions that can be investigated: who receives credit, whose labour is visible, how does a work enter a competition or exhibition, and which rules guide an institution’s response?
How does AI art history differ from using AI to study art history? ↗The former studies AI-related artistic practices and their institutional, social and technical contexts.
Related cases & evidence
These cases provide material for comparison and verification; no single source substantiates every claim in the guide.
Boris Eldagsen / PSEUDOMNESIA award-refusal intervention ↗
Research is ongoing; collected events do not constitute a complete case history.
View full image ↗Boris Eldagsen, PSEUDOMNESIA: The Electrician (2022), reproduced on the artist’s account of declining the 2023 photography award.
© Boris Eldagsen; artist’s website
Source · Sony World Photography Awards 2023: artist’s account ↗Christie’s / Augmented Intelligence and open letter ↗
Collected events and documents are linked in the timeline; the case history remains under research.
View full image ↗An illustrative image of Alexander Reben’s Untitled Robot Painting, published in Christie’s sale announcement on 7 February 2025.
Alexander Reben; image source: Christie’s
Source · Augmented Intelligence sale announcement ↗Zarya of the Dawn / Review of comic copyright scope ↗
Research is ongoing; collected events do not constitute a complete case history.
View full image ↗Kristina’s Zarya of the Dawn. Reproduced in Chen Haohao’s 2023 commentary.
Rights retained by original creators; reproduction source: Chen Haohao’s 2023 commentary
Source · Disco and AI: Is the Movement Against AI a New Luddism? ↗Procreate / Statement against introducing generative AI ↗
Research is ongoing; collected events do not constitute a complete case history.
View full image ↗An image of digital drawing from Procreate’s statement against introducing generative AI.
Procreate / Savage Interactive; rights retained by source
Source · Procreate’s position on AI ↗Original sources
Artist signatories of the open letter · EN
Read original source ↗United States Copyright Office · EN
Read original source ↗This research guide is written by the archive. Its Chinese and English texts may include AI-assisted translations and may not yet have received independent human review. Check historical claims and rights information against the original-language sources.
Citation & methodology
This topic is a selection and reading path, not an exhaustive history. Cite the relevant record and original source for specific claims. To cite this guide, give its title, URL and access date.
ANTI-AI ARCHIVE. AI art: a guide to practice, authorship and controversy. https://salondesrefuses.cn/en/topics/ai-art/guides/overview
Methodology & citation ↗