Artistic contributions: 200 Years of the Present. Constellation 1

Daniel García Andújar, Cancel Culture, 2023–2025
30 fine art prints, color, each 28 x 35 cm
Courtesy: Daniel García Andújar

The series of digital graphics is based on generative AI systems. It represents an archive of statistically determined images showing scenes of riots and unrest in the form of engravings, paintings or photographs. In these images, political monuments are attacked, overthrown, or only their remains are visible. The images were generated by entering descriptions in natural language, so-called “prompts,” which, among other things, refer to historical images from the WKV archive.
The title Cancel Culture is based on the artist's ambivalent experiences in dealing with AI systems, which are usually owned by companies that regulate their functions. Strict content moderation procedures are used to protect against discrimination, violence or hate speech. However, this socially relevant moderation also leads to content being filtered out indiscriminately. Some tech companies have now just as indiscriminately abolished these control systems – in line with the far-right government of the USA. Another problem with AI systems is their susceptibility to “algorithmic bias”. Stereotypes of gender, race, social origin, religion, etc. are inscribed into the learning processes of AI, leading to distorted results and the potential for discrimination. This work examines how AI's representational practices relate to the topic of social revolt.

Daniel García Andújar, Entfremdung (Marx/Hegel), 2025
Video, color, sound, 1:17 min.
Courtesy: Daniel García Andújar
An AI resurrects the ghosts of Marx and Hegel.

Stan Douglas, Courtroom, 2007
C-Print, mounted on aluminum, 90 x 100 cm
Edition of the WKV and the Staatsgalerie Stuttgart
Courtroom is an edition by Stan Douglas that was created in conjunction with the large-scale solo exhibition that the WKV dedicated to the artist in 2007 in collaboration with the Staatsgalerie Stuttgart. The photograph shows one of the locations of the video work Vidéo, which combines Samuel Beckett’s 1965 film Film with Franz Kafka’s The Trial (published posthumously in 1925) and Jean-Luc Goddard’s Two or Three Things I Know About Her (1967). Vidéo is an early work that addresses the issues of justice and police in the context of racial profiling

Luise Duttenhofer, various paper cuts, c. 1820
(*1776; †1829 in Stuttgart)
Courtesy: Private Collection, Stuttgart
Luise Duttenhofer and her husband, the engraver Christian Duttenhofer, who was involved in the process of founding the WKV, belonged to the upper Stuttgart bourgeoisie and were frequent guests at the various salons. She wanted to be a painter, but her family did not allow her to receive the appropriate education. Instead, she took up scissors. In her paper cuts, she comments on the vanities of her contemporaries and her own role in society with criticism, satire, and irony.

Christoph Irrgang, untitled (Hermannsdenkmal), 1992
Series of five black-and-white photographs, produced with an edition of 11 as a multiple in a green box.
Exhibition copy, photo prints on baryta paper, motif size: 24 x 16 cm
Courtesy: Christoph Irrgang
Christoph Irrgang’s photographs are of the Hermannsdenkmal, a 53-meter-high colossal statue in the Teutoburg Forest. It is one of those 19th-century structures that stand for the formation of a national identity and a national historical narrative in Germany. Irrgang deals with the monument’s monumentality, the architectural surroundings of which shape the perception.

Vika Kirchenbauer, Compassion and Inconvenience, 2024
Single-channel video, color, sound, 30 min.
Courtesy: Vika Kirchenbauer / VG Bild-Kunst
Vika Kirchenbauer’s essayistic-performative video work Compassion and Inconvenience (2024) looks at public art exhibitions in 18th-century London and suggests a different context of origin than those usually considered. An oft-overlooked care facility for “deserted young children” is set as the genesis for the establishment of European art institutions, in which private economic and colonial interests intersect with notions of benevolence and the pursuit of refinement. Accompanying conflicts and discourses show how a rhetoric of democratisation along with simultaneous efforts at class distinction marked the art field from early on. At the centre of the video work are five performers who recite texts compiled from the 18th century British philosophy and theology as well as from the minute books.

NOH Suntag, The Deer, 2008
Photographs, color
Courtesy: NOH Suntag, WKV Archive

Further editions (selection)

Ricardo Basbaum, 4br, 2006
Fine art print laminated on Dibond, 63 x 46 cm
Edition of the WKV

Bruno Demattio, stuttgart-stammheim-jail-fuck, 1970
Screen print, 46 x 35 cm
Edition of the WKV

HAP Grieshaber, Forest. Environmental Protection, 1972
Woodcut in colors on Werkdruck paper, 97 x 67 cm
Archive of the WKV

John Hillard, Off Screen (No. 5), 1999
Iris print, 30.5 x 38.5 cm
Edition of the WKV

Ferdinand Kriwet, Poem Print, 1971
Acrylic on plastic on wood, 126 x 126 cm
Edition of the WKV

Antoni Muntadas, Warning: Perception Requires Involvement, 2003
C-Print, Edition
Courtesy: private collection

Anna Oppermann, Being Different (“Somehow so different...”) Portrait A.O., 1980–2007
Black and white photograph on baryta paper, 60.5 x 50 cm
Edition of the WKV

Dan Perjovschi, Stuttgart 21, 2011
Screen print, 21 x 29.7 cm
Edition of the WKV and Künstlerhaus Stuttgart