Human Trans_Mission. Sophie Ramirez (SOFF) on the trail of the “absurd phenomenon of being human”.

Loud and trendy, or futuristic and downright cosmic, Sophie Ramirez alias SOFF poses on the photos of her brightly coloured Instagram-Feeds. When meeting the student of Kunstakademie Düsseldorf privately, you get a surprise. Her extraordinary styling is not just a means of her staging, but an expression of her personality. Make-up, clothing – everything is loud, stands out from what is usually described as "normal". SOFF lives this style. Bold, and impressively self-confident! But, what exactly is her art? Doesn't SOFF fall into the rather more superficial category of pop culture or, is she simply a good model? I wanted to find out and go and visit her in her live-in studio ... (to read more, tap on photo)
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Alex Grein – Ephemeral: photographically “exposed“

Cell phone holders, blocks of ice, dissecting tables, frozen matter in a freezer, viscous matter in canisters, photographs in deformed frames, and butterflies on video screens. Although I haven’t seen them, the mere listing makes me more than curious about this exhibition. How can we connect all of these, such different works? A first idea is conveyed in the exhibition title „d a  u   e    r“ ...
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Banz & Bowinkel – Digital shadows of real images

Admittedly, I had successfully managed to sneak by the world of Immersive art without paying attention, until I visited this exhibition. The terminology alone, with its abbreviations, seemed scary to me: Artificial Intelligence (AI), Computer Generated Imagery (CGI), Virtual Reality (VR), Augmented Reality (AR), Bots, and now Non-Fungible Tokens (NFT) ... Too technical. Too complicated. Or so I thought until I met Giulia Bowinkel and Friedemann Banz – THE artist duo that has been shaping the development of this young art form since its beginnings.

Louisa Clement – Can physical emptiness be filled digitally?

Bonn. Can physical emptiness be filled digitally? How do the interpersonal relationships change in the era of digitalisation? These are questions that occupy Louisa Clement’s mind and have been occupying mine ever since I visited her. I increasingly understand the power of digital communication which currently appears to help us to mainly maintain the contact with the outside world – while the pandemic is raging. “Your Likes made my day “, so popular now, is assuming a worrying underton …

Volker Hermes – Hidden Portraits – Just masquerade?

Düsseldorf-Unterbilk. Even though his Hidden Portraits, which are creations of photographic art and are currently going through the ceiling, may not suggest it at first glance, Volker Hermes is a painter. Originally his very specialised portraits were not planned as an independent series of works, but merely as studies on the history of painting. Similarly, until July 2020 the artist considered Instagram to be an unsuitable medium for presenting his art. But then everything turned out surprisingly different ...

Philipp Humm – Faust as Gesamtkunstwerk of the 21st century?

London, film premiere of The Last Faust. Both the trailer and even just a brief look at Philipp Humm's Gesamtkunstwerk*, his total work of art (graphics, photography, oil painting and sculpture) which now comprises one hundred and fifty works, astonished me beyond belief. Yet what I see today in the cinema hall and will see in his studio tomorrow is absolutely beyond my expectations. A fascinating mix of surreal, bizarre, comical yet also oppressively visionary images draws me directly into a cinematic future of the world. A world, where artificial intelligence has taken control over planet Earth ...
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Johanna Keimeyer – Multimedia self-awareness

Berlin, Prenzlauer Berg. Oderberger Straße municipal swimming pool. This is the place where Johanna Keimeyer staged her spectacular dance performance, much talked about in the media, for the reopening of the renovated building. It is also the location where photographs of her series Pool Around, are installed throughout the entire complex. Here we start our tour through Berlin, a tour through the artist’s multimedia work . . .

Matthias Wollgast – Genius Appropriation

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