Exhibition »Writing the History of the Future. The ZKM Collection«
20.07.2019
The thirtieth anniversary of the founding of the ZKM | Center for Art and Media in Karlsruhe is the fitting occasion to retell the history of art in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries with its collection, which is considered one of the most important media art collections in the world. With more than 500 items on display, the exhibition shows for the first time the diversity of the arts in the face of changing media. It includes photography, graphics, painting, and sculpture as well as computer-based works, film, holography, kinetic art, Op Art, sound art, visual poetry, and video art.
In the twentieth century technical media radically transformed the image. Beginning with the scandalous medium of photography, in which images seemingly generated themselves, media »transformed the entire nature of art« (Walter Benjamin). Photography, film, phonography, radio, television, video, computers, and the Internet have redefined the relationship between artist, work, and viewer as well as our notion of the creative act. The exhibition Writing the History of the Future exemplifies the transformation of art due to the changing technologies of production, reception, and distribution. It also shows how artists anticipate media and social practices that will only become self-evident for society in general years later. As the title of the exhibition says, they write the history of the future.