As part of the »medialounge at six« Peter Weibel presents the catalog »Ed Sommer. Planetary Alliance«. It offers an overview of the complex and extraordinary work of the artist Ed Sommer, who preferred to call himself a »visual language maker«.

His oeuvre since 1959 has included metal objects, acrylic glass formations, gestural painting, erotic films, projection photographs, dialogical portraits and speech texts. In 2014, the ZKM took over many of Ed Sommer's works into its collection. The publication presents the collection, supplemented by other works by Ed Sommer.

Ed Sommer was born in Schwäbisch Gmünd in 1932 and died there in August 2015. Together with his artist friend Marc Adrian, Sommer was one of the most important representatives of Op-Art and Kinetics. In the 1970s Sommer attracted great attention with his films and photographs. His apartment was a popular meeting place for many local and national contemporaries, including Walter Giers, Arnulf Letto, Herbert Oehm and Siegfried Cremer. In his role as a patron, he has supported artist friends. He was thanked for this with numerous works dedicated to him.

Organization / Institution

ZKM | Center for Art and Media