Hommage à Paul Klee Nr. 2

Frieder Nake, who has a PhD in mathematics, is considered one of the pioneers of computer-based graphics. Influenced by the Stuttgart philosopher Max Bense, he began his first artistic explorations on the mainframe computer at the Computer Center of the Technical University in Stuttgart as early as 1963.

While the combination of numbers in the title of this graphic work pragmatically refers to the date of its creation, September 13, 1965, the suffix – »(Hommage à Paul Klee)« [A Tribute to Paul Klee] – indicates the inspiration. According to Frieder Nake, this graphic was inspired by Paul Klee’s painting »Hauptwege und Nebenwege« [Main Path and Side Paths] (1929), which is one of his most famous. He programmed a graphics program using the COMPART ER56 software and had the legendary Zuse Graphomat Z64 put the result on paper.

Here, Frieder Nake takes the irregular grid structures and circular shapes that characterize numerous works by the modern painter and graphic artist Paul Klee. Klee’s curved, hand-drawn line becomes a line calculated by the computer program, and irregular hand-drawn circular shapes become precisely constructed circles.

A characteristic of Nake’s computer graphics is the tension between calculation and the aleatory: although the artist gives the computer command specifications, these are chosen in such a way that they always leave enough room for surprises, which are revealed in the execution of the graphic. All his pictures, Nake repeatedly emphasizes, are explorations of chance.