20-29 January 

Verse x EXPANDED.ART

 curated by Verse (Leyla Fakhr) and EXPANDED.ART (Anika Meier) aims to define a point in history where a network of artists are generating abstract works with algorithms and codes. Artists employing formal ideas of abstraction in their codes and algorithms are pioneering compositions that take generative art to new horizons.

The origins of abstract art are debated, with some tracing its roots to ancient Islamic art and others locating its beginnings in the early 20th century Western art movement. During the years leading up to World War I, artists such as Delaunay, Kandinsky, Malevich, and Tatlin embraced abstraction in their practice. While Kandinsky is often credited as the first artist to create purely abstract, non-representational paintings, his work was later challenged by the abstract art of Swedish artist Hilma af Klint, whose focus on spirituality differed from Kandinsky's logical theories. The emergence of the de Stijl group in the Netherlands and the Dada group in Switzerland further expanded the spectrum of abstract art, leading to what some consider the two golden eras of the movement: 1912-1925 and 1947-1970.

Since the late 1950s, a group of artists have been utilising algorithmic procedures to create art. Early pioneers in this field include Herbert W. Franke and Vera Molnar, whose works are featured in this exhibition. In recent years, there has been an eruption of abstract works within the digital realm, where artists are increasingly employing code to create generative works. This has led to the emergence of a new, vibrant movement and community that has yet to be fully explored within the broader context of art history.

Artists are using algorithms and codes to create formal ideas of abstraction in their compositions, pushing the boundaries of the movement and inviting viewers to appreciate the works for their aesthetic effects and compositions alone. This experience is similar to the enjoyment of music, where pure patterns of form, color, and line create a powerful impact.

By exploring the intersection of art and technology through the works of these innovative artists, GENERATIVE ABSTRACTION AND BEYOND invites the viewer to consider the ways in which these fields interact and influence one another.

 Herbert W. Franke, Lee Mullican, Heinrich Heidersberger, Anna Lucia, Kim Asendorf, Banz & Bowinkel, Anna Carreras, Anna Beller, Ira Greenberg, Iskra Velitchkova, Jonas Lund, Leander Herzog & Richard Nadler, Aaron Penne, Lisa Orth, Marcel Schwittlick, Manuel Rossner, Ivona Tau, Julien Espagnon, Damjanski, and Olga Fradina. 

 20 January | 6-9 PM CET | EXPANDED.ART | Friedrichstraße 67 | Berlin
The artists Richard Nadler, Anna Beller, Manuel Rossner, Banz & Bowinkel, and Marcel Schwittlick will be present. 



 29 January 6-9 PM CET | EXPANDED.ART | Friedrichstraße 67 | Berlin
Anika Meier in conversation with Kim Asendorf and Leander Herzog on the past and present of generative art on the blockchain. 


The NFTs will be minted on Ethereum and will be available to collect 

. The artists will release 1/1s, limited and open editions, and long-form generative art projects. Prints, paintings and drawings will be available on 

, Leander Herzog & Richard Nadler (fxhash, Tezos)


24-25 JANUARY | 9-9PM CET | 3PM ET | 12PM PT

GENERATIVE ABSTRACTION AND BEYOND

2-26 MARCH

HERBERT W FRANKE: CODED BEAUTY

"People generally dismiss technology as a threat to art. I will attempt to demonstrate that it is not, and even opens up previously unimagined artistic territory." – Herbert W. Franke, 1957

EXPANDED. ART is pleased to present the solo exhibition CODED BEAUTY by Herbert W Franke in collaboration with the estate. The show is comprised of eight works from Franke’s series MATH ART, created between 1980 and 1995; early generative photographs from the 1950s; his Biennale serigraphy, including QUADRATE (1969/70); and further serigraphies. He held the belief that the beauty of structures shown in visual arts is founded on mathematical codes and spent a lifetime in search of them. In May 2022, Frank turned 95, and the world seems to have finally caught up with his art and thinking. His first NFT Drop, MATH ART, was sold out within 30 seconds, and he was the headliner at the Tezos Booth at Art Basel in 2023 with a work from 1979. Herbert W. Franke died on July 16, 2022, at the age of 95, leaving behind an extensive oeuvre.

Herbert W. Franke is a universal genius. For several decades, he separated three lives: the caver and scientist, the artist, curator and art theorist, and the science fiction author. Only on the occasion of his solo exhibition in 2010 at the ZKM Karlsruhe did he bring these three lives and careers together under the title WANDERER BETWEEN THE WORLDS. In the early 1950s, caving led him to experiment with light and technology. He kept his curiosity throughout his life; it was his drive to examine new technologies for their artistic potential. His pioneering spirit made him one of the first computer artists who was more than six decades ahead of his time.

In the 1950s, he started generating art based on mathematical principles, which led to his first pieces, LICHTFORMEN and OSZILLOGRAMME (created with an anlog computer), and finally used digital computer programs from the 1960s on. LICHTFORMEN are early examples of generative photography. In contrast to depicting photography, this is about the realization of Herbert W. Franke's abstract pictorial ideas – if you will, about visual inventions that show forms and structures that have not already existed but were first created or made visible by special technical means. Unlike the light graphics of the 1920s, it is about images that were systematically created under defined conditions. For the light forms, with the help of Andreas Hübner, a then-journeyman in the Siemens photo laboratory, mechano-optical self-constructions were used. The main instruments were white-painted, illuminated wires that were moved when the aperture was open. Motifs were created with a rotating disk set up in the foreground with free gaps through which the illuminated wire was recorded with an open aperture. The rotating disk leads to a stoboscopic effect. A special case were the so-called "spatial studies," in which the wire was not guided by hand but hung up and set in rotation. The background was illuminated by the projection of a light-dark line grid.

In 1970, Franke was represented at the Venice Biennale and showed a screen print of the series QUADRATE created with the digital computer, in which he let chance and algorithm work together. The square picture is made up of three types of elements that differ in size and color. They were distributed across the screen using a random number generator.

The number of elements in each of the three groups depends on the knowledge of information aesthetics, which shows which group deserves the most attention: the few large squares. And which is perceived as the dominant element of the picture: the medium-sized squares? The smallest elements, on the other hand, form the background, so to speak, and are given the least attention. The series was created with the IBM 1130 system at the Max Planck Institute for Psychiatry, Munich, developed by the Institute for Communications Engineering at the Technical University of Munich, and developed by the scientific project manager for development and construction, Prof. Dr.-Ing. Georg Färber. At that time, he was an assistant at the TU Institute.

In 1980, Herbert W. Franke began his fifteen-year collaboration with programmer Horst Helbig at the German Aerospace Center in Oberpfaffenhofen. Together, they studied mathematical disciplines in relation to aesthetics. The series MATH ART is the output of their research at the intersection of science and art. It reveals a universe of numbers transformed into images through a variety of shapes and colors reminiscent of Pop Art.

From the very beginning, it was clear to him that it is the artist's mission to examine new technologies and their social significance through the lens of their creative potential. For Herbert W. Franke mathematics are the essence of visual arts. While he saw the artist as an analytical maker using mathematics to create structures, he assigned the computer the task of modulating these principles of order through varying random processes. Franke, therefore, began to think of the computer as an artist's creative partner very early on.

FEATURED ARTWORKS

Herbert W Franke's pioneering spirit made him one of the first computer artists who was more than six decades ahead of his time. Franke discussed his visionary practice with Anika Meier.

INTERVIEW WITH HERBERT W FRANKE

"TECHNOLOGY IS NOT A THREAT TO ART."

"Many of the early pioneers did not dare call their work art and instead categorized it as design. But I just had nothing to lose." – Herbert W Franke 

The color served to code certain structural elements, which was of fundamental importance. The computer system at DLR in Oberpfaffenhofen, which was powerful at the time, had integrated output equipment with which the digitally developed image worlds were transferred directly to high-resolution photo film. On his own DOS PC, Franke created the preparatory work for the captivatingly vivid aesthetics of this mathematical investigation. In the beginning, there were algebraic formulas for three-dimensional spatial areas: The three dimensions were converted mostly into two-dimensional landscapes, whereby the "contour lines," i.e., the z-axis of the room, were color-coded with specially developed color grids. Starting with algebraic landscapes, the two worked their way through a wide variety of disciplines via wave functions, Fourier transformations, broken dimensions, and logical connections until they finally visualized complex and irrational numbers as well as random processes and logical connections with their method.

CODED BEAUTY gives an overview of Franke’s belief in the artist’s mission to use technology to open up previously unimagined artistic territories.

EXPANDED.ART
Friedrichstrasse 67, 10117 Berlin
Monday - Saturday: 11 AM - 6 PM CET

Herbert W Franke: CODED BEAUTY  2-26 March 2023 EXPANDED.ART | BERLIN
CODED BEAUTY is comprised of eight works of Franke’s series MATH ART created between 1980 and 1995, early generative photographs from the 1950s, his Biennale serigraphy including QUADRATE (1969/70) and further serigraphies. 
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HERBERT W FRANKE | CODED BEAUTY

Math Art Logic

Herbert W. Franke has always envisioned his MATH ART series to be displayed in this way, light and bright and strong colors, Francisco Carolinum in Linz made it possible for the first time for his solo show VISIONARY in 2022. LOGIC and 3D-LANDSCAPES were not part of Franke‘s MATH ART NFT collection released in 2022. No NFT is connected to the Light Box. Payable in ETH. ABOUT HERBERT W. FRANKE Known as a universal genius, Herbert W. Franke (1927-2022) is the forefather of computer art, co-founder of Ars Electronica, mastermind of the Metaverse, and science-fiction writer. He spent his entire career bridging the worlds of art and science.
EXPANDED.ART represents the estate of Herbert W. Franke.  
ABOUT MATH ART
In 1980, Herbert W. Franke began a fifteen-year collaboration with programmer Horst Helbig at the German Aerospace Center. Together, they studied mathematical disciplines in relation to aesthetics. The series MATH ART is the output of their research at the intersection of science and art. It reveals a universe of numbers transformed into images through a variety of shapes and colors reminiscent of Pop Art. 
Throughout his entire life, Herbert W. Franke used mathematical principles for art experimentation. From the very beginning, it was clear to him that it is the artist's mission to examine new technologies and their social significance through the lens of their creative potential. For Herbert W. Franke mathematics are the essence of visual arts. While he saw the artist as an analytical maker using mathematics to create structures, he assigned the computer the task of modulating these principles of order through varying random processes. Franke, therefore, considered the computer as a creative partner for the artist very early on.
The color served to code certain structural elements and was of fundamental importance. The computer system at DLR in Oberpfaffenhofen, which was powerful at the time, had integrated output equipment with which the digitally developed image worlds were transferred directly to high-resolution photo film. On his own DOS PC, Franke created the preparatory work for the captivatingly vivid aesthetics of this mathematical investigation.
In the beginning, there were algebraic formulas for three-dimensional spatial areas: The three dimensions were converted into two-dimensional landscapes, whereby the "contour lines," i.e., the z-axis of the room, were color-coded with specially developed color grids. Starting with algebraic landscapes, the two worked their way through a wide variety of disciplines via wave functions, Fourier transformations, broken dimensions, and logical connections, until they finally visualized complex and irrational numbers as well as random processes and logical connections with their method.

Math Art 3D-Landscapes

Relief Math Art

Relief Math Art Rotation

AVAILABLE WORKS

Herbert W Franke's solo exhibition CODED BEAUTY explores the extensive oeuvre of the digital pioneer and is on view from 2-26 March 2023 at EXPANDED.ART in Berlin. 

HERBERT W. FRANKE

CODED BEAUTY

1-22 FEBRUARY 

KIM ASENDORF & LEANDER HERZOG: STACK TRACE

EXPANDED.ART is pleased to present STACK TRACE, the first duo show by Kim Asendorf & Leander Herzog. The exhibition is comprised of eight works on aluminum and a real-time multi-channel NFT collection, which the German and Swiss artists created as a site-specific installation. Asendorf & Herzog create abstract paintings with code and animated pixels that sort endlessly and thus rethink the medium of painting in the age of Post-NFTism.

STACK TRACE is a dialogue between Asendorf and Herzog about painting and sculpture in generative art. The two series of works, CHROME and BYPASS, themselves are stacks that address seriality and scalability and depict traces of processes. In the exhibition space, algorithms and code running in real time on a sculptural installation consisting of screens are juxtaposed with marks on aluminium that were manually generated based on algorithmically placed point constellations.

Asendorf & Herzog add the parameter of time to generative art. Coordinated world time, or UTC for short, serves as the main anchor for the synchronization of the real-time multi-channel installation CHROME. The 128 channels run synchronously at all times, without beginning or end, adapted to any screen format. CHROME emerges from a continuous linear movement punctuated by a rhythmic and random choreography. Soft gradients and hard edges collide, colors run into each other, and pixels move from left to right. Organic forms flow as pixels rearrange endlessly in a ticker, the archetype of linear motion.

STACK TRACE is both an experiment and a statement: Asendorf & Herzog test how generative art and NFTs can be expanded with the technological possibilities of their time.

.

EXPANDED.ART
Friedrichstrasse 67, 10117 Berlin
Monday - Saturday: 11 AM - 6 PM CET

PRE-SALE: 28 FEBRUARY | 6 PM CET
PUBLIC MINT: 1 MARCH | 6 PM CET

Corresponding with their duo show STACK TRACE, Kim Asendorf & Leander Herzog will release CHROME, a collection of 128 NFTs. 

On-Chain multi-channel real-time animation
JavaScript, GLSL, variable dimensions
Ethereum smart contract

Kim Asendorf is a visual artist working with conceptual strategies and generative systems to create abstract animations, images, and sculptures. He lives and works in Bremen, Germany. He is widely known for the creation of a Pixel Sorting algorithm he made Open Source and that has been used by thousands of artists and designers since 2012. The pixel is the main building block in his work, seemingly alive in his abstractions, or rearranged in his iconic Pixel Sorting aesthetics.

Asendorf's works has been shown at festivals and institutions like Transmediale, ZKM Karlsruhe, Edith-Russ-Haus für Medienkunst, NCCA Yekaterinburg, Eyebeam, NIMK, LEAP or the Overlapping Biennial Bucharest and at galleries and fairs like Unpainted (Munich), Moving Image Contemporary Art Fair (London), Creation Gallery G8 (Tokyo), Carroll / Fletcher (London), and The Photographers' Gallery (London).

Leander Herzog is a visual artist based in Switzerland, creating images with code since 2006. His focus is generative and interactive abstraction on the web. Currently he combines his experience from building websites and digital products with generative art and the new potential NFTs present. Herzog’s practice explores visual maximalism enabled by contemporary computer graphics and the widespread availability of networked screens as well as minimalist abstraction based on web technology standards. He plays with the contrast between the simplicity of algorithmic systems and the complexity of their emergent properties.

In the last decade, his work evolved from static images to moving visuals and realtime experiences on the web, including generative audio, interactive installations, data driven sculpture and digital fabrication. Titles and aesthetics of his works often reference the history of painting as well as the artist's own past experience with graffiti writing.

KIM ASENDORF & LEANDER HERZOG | STACK TRACE

Bypass A1

Bypass A2

Bypass A3

Bypass A4

Bypass A5

Bypass A6

Bypass A7

Bypass A8

The duo show STACK TRACE by Kim Asendorf and Leander Herzog explores abstract paintings with code and animated pixels that sort endlessly and thus rethink the medium of painting in the age of Post-NFTism. 

KIM ASENDORF & LEANDER HERZOG 

STACK TRACE

Test Exhibitions/Articles

Exhibition Subtitle

Exhibition TEST

28 MARCH - 16 APRIL

IRA GREENBERG: BEASTS

EXPANDED.ART is pleased to present BEASTS by IRA GREENBERG in partnership with EMERGENT PROPERTIES on view at the gallery from 29 MARCH to 16 APRIL. The exhibition will present an expansive universe created by the artist‘s code and generative AI.

With an eclectic background combining studio arts and computer science, Ira Greenberg has been a painter, 2D and 3D animator, print designer, web and interactive designer/developer, programmer, art director, creative director, managing director, art and computer science professor, and author.

Currently, Greenberg is Director of the Center of Creative Computation and Professor at SMU, with a joint appointment in the Meadows School of the Arts and the Lyle School of Engineering. He wrote the first major language reference on the Processing programming language, Processing: Creative Coding and Computational Art, (Berkeley, CA: friends of ED, 2007) and two subsequent creative coding texts.

Greenberg has steadily exhibited his work, consulted within industry and lectured widely throughout his career. He was affiliated with the Bowery Gallery in New York City, Flywheel Gallery in Piermont, NY, and is currently a member of Strata Gallery in Santa Fe, NM.


28 MARCH - 16 APRIL 
OPENING: 28 MARCH | 6-9 PM CET 


Friedrichstrasse 67, 10117 Berlin
Monday - Saturday: 11 AM - 6 PM CET

BEASTS by IRA GREENBERG in partnership with EMERGENT PROPERTIES is on view at EXPANDED.ART from 29 MARCH to 16 APRIL. The exhibition presents an expansive universe created by the artist‘s code and generative AI. 

IRA GREENBERG

BEASTS

25 APRIL - 14 MAY

JUSTIN AVERSANO: RAUCH UND SPIEGEL

EXPANDED.ART is pleased to present RAUCH UND SPIEGEL, the first solo show of Justin Aversano at the gallery in Berlin. 

For his series SMOKE AND MIRRORS Justin Aversano photographed 78 sets of artists, astrologers, psychics, tarot readers, and other forms of mystics from all around the world. Each subject represents a unique tarot card. Aversano is creating a body of work focused on the existence of magic and mysticism through an immersive portrait survey and tarot readings. 

The artist converted the black-and-white photographs into silkscreen paintings. Combining the elements of the real (photographic) and the surreal (painting) to facilitate a broad and reflexive mixed-media dialogue that discerns the characters represented by the cards, their powers, and the significance of their presence in this natural world.

Justin Aversano is the co-founder and CEO of Quantum Art, a platform focused on curating digital culture through NFTs. He is also the co-founder and creative director of SaveArtSpace, a nonprofit dedicated to bringing community art to public spaces. A humanist and social entrepreneur, Aversano connects his art with the world around him by capturing moments, faces, and communities that surround him and bringing them together through the lens of his camera. The artist is currently based in Los Angeles.