Guest of Honor: Wulf Herzogenrath
“Everyone is talking about digitalization and artificial intelligence as something new, even as future-oriented. But artists and scientists have been testing the computer and the storage possibilities and forms of the newly developed machines since the early 1960s. New forms, repetitions and variations, new spaces and superimpositions emerged in the works of pioneers such as Herbert W. Franke, Georg Nees and Frieder Nake as well as other explorers of new worlds that combine algorithmics and aesthetics. They are both scientists and artists. Their work can rightly be described by the words of Frieder Nake: “Think the image, don’t make it”.
Herbert W. Franke published and collected the breadth of possibilities and the Kupferstichkabinett of the Kunsthalle Bremen – equipped with the almost complete print works of Dürer, Rembrandt, Barlach or Nam June Paik – was even able to acquire the core holdings of the Franke collection and even expand and round it off. This was made possible with the help of patrons such as the Ernst von Siemens Kulturstiftung, which also supported the publication.”