ART MACHINES, MACHINE ART EXHIBITION

We generally assume that artists make art. But what happens when machines produce art? Do artists then become engineers? What does the artist’s apparent withdrawal from the creative act signify, and what are the consequences of that action for the originality and uniqueness of the artwork? What is then the work of art: the machine, the product, or the act of producing it? Beginning with Jean Tinguely’s drawing machines from the 1950s and continuing to the present, this exhibition, jointly conceived by the Schirn and the Museum Tinguely in Basel, features art machines that have one thing in common: they produce art themselves. Machines by artists such as Angela Bulloch, Olafur Eliasson, Damien Hirst, Rebecca Horn, Jon Kessler, Tim Lewis, Lia, Miltos Manetas, Steven Pippin, Cornelia Sollfrank, Antoine Zgraggen, and Andreas Zybach transform art spaces into production spaces. Thanks to the mechanical process of production, visitors to the exhibition can take home several of t he works, such as the Tinguely machine drawings and sheets by Damien Hirst and Olafur Eilasson. Other, digital works may be produced by the visitors in the exhibition or on the Internet, such as on the websites of Lia or Miltos Manetas.

Art Machines, Machine Art is on at Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt, Germany from 18 October 2007 – 27 January 2008.

http://www.schirn-kunsthalle.de/index.php?do=exhibitions_detail&id=78&lang=en