11 SEP until 1 NOV 2025
Opening – 11 SEP 2025, 6-10 pm

In the world divided by World War II, in the 1960s, the west wind whisks an air balloon up and across the Iron Curtain. The balloon bears a slogan by US artist Warhol. In East Germany, the westernmost nook of the Soviet Empire, one single artist intercepts this balloon and reads: “I think everybody should be a machine.” The authorities in Moscow have poured scorn on Warhol because the American brings back memories of the repressed Russian avantgarde. A.R. Penck, who is busy struggling in Dresden to defend his position as an artist, is able to use his find to optimal effect. From his base in the underground in the Soviet vassal state he elaborates a “shift in Warhol’s stance”. With his own program, he updates the slogan to read: “The man as a computer”.

Text by Ulf Jensen