HERFORD.- The present is hard to grasp. It is fluid and post-digital. Since the beginning of the 21st century, the term “post-digital” has been used to describe the merging of digital technologies with our everyday reality. The analog and digital have become inextricably linked and are on a par, together they form our hybrid present. This permeates all areas of life and influences our perception, thought, communication, and action. Through the constantly advancing technological and thus also societal changes, spaces and body images appear to be dissolving more and more. This development has a strong impact on the methods of artistic production as well as on the content and themes of painting. From the onset, computer-based practices and their visual language have been adapted by painters and used for painting-specific exploration.
The exhibition brings together 25 artists and artist duos who deal with materiality, aesthetics and the influence of the digital and virtual on painting and transform them into their own hybrid visuality. The focus is on positions in painting that draw on both traditional and computer-generated technologies in creating their works: image processing and digital drawing programs, printing techniques, virtual and augmented reality, AI, animation and 3D software, as well as algorithmic programs and codes are examined with the means of painting and become artistic means themselves. Virtual space and social media are reflected upon as contemporary experiential spaces and contemporary everyday culture and are mirrored using the physical materiality of painting.
Supplemented by early examples from the 1950s, the exhibition establishes a connection ranging from computer-based painting of the 1980s all the way to recent examples of AI applications. The artists largely dissolve classic categories and expand the concept of painting based on our post-digital present.
This project marks the first time that an exhibition has been jointly developed by the Kunsthalle Bielefeld and the Marta Herford. It is on view concurrently in both museums and is funded by Kulturstiftung des Bundes, Bundesbeauftragte für Kultur und Medien, Stiftung der Sparkasse Bielefeld, LWL Kulturstiftung, Bundesministerium für Kunst und Kultur, öffentlicher Dienst und Sport Österreich, Stiftung der Stadtwerke Bielefeld and Stadtwerke Herford.
The exhibition will be complemented by an international, public symposium in cooperation with the Kunstakademie Münster on July 19 and 20, 2024. The symposium will provide insights into the history, developments and potential of post-digital painting.
Artists: Sónia Almeida, Tim Berresheim, Kerstin Brätsch, Salomé Chatriot, Vivian Greven, Wade Guyton, Tishan Hsu, Jacqueline Humphries, Charlotte Johannesson, KAYA, Peter Kogler, Vera Molnar, Mukenge/Schellhammer, Albert Oehlen, Laura Owens, Seth Price, Rafaël Rozendaal, Pieter Schoolwerth, Amy Sillman, Avery Singer, Cheyney Thompson, Philipp Timischl, Andy Warhol, Corinne Wasmuht, Anicka Yi.
