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Machine Art
A small collection in itself: the Art Ex Machina portfolio.

Heike Werner
Summer 2013 / May 2026

In his »ART EX MACHINA« portfolio the Canadian gallerist and publisher Gilles Gheerbrant presents works by six international protagonists of early computer-generated art in one computer art edition, that constitutes, in its own right, a small collection.

Art Ex Machina

»Art Ex Machina« was published in 1972 in Montreal, in an edition of 200 copies. It contains six serigraphs, each with an artist's statement printed on the cover sheet, a title plate, plus two text tables—one in French, one in English—»ars ex machina« by Abraham A. Moles.
The title of the portfolio, »Art Ex Machina«—hints, just like »Deus ex machina«—alludes to the unexpected, coincidental, and surprising effects that a machine can generate. Experimenting with chance and serendipity (e.g., by means of random number generators) is a frequently used »art generator« in algorithmic art.

The original Art Ex Machina Box.

The Artists

The six participating artists are: computer art pioneer Hiroshi Kawano of Japan; from the U.S.A.: Kenneth C. (Ken) Knowlton; from Spain: Manuel Barbadillo, and from Germany: the digital art pioneers Frieder Nake, Georg Nees and—based in Paris and New York—Manfred Mohr.

Computer Art Serigraphs

Gheerbrant was one of the first gallerists to introduce computer art into the official art market. The printing technique of choice was that of hand-executed screen prints, and Gheerbrant had them masterly printed by Pierre Foisy.
But: Why printed by hand?

First, this technique enabled the creation of expansive, vividly colored renditions of computer-generated works—achieving a level of expressiveness that computerized machine drawings of the time were technically unable to match. (Nevertheless, Frieder Nake, for example, opted for a pure reproduction of the original machine-generated line drawing.)

Second, largely thanks to Andy Warhol, serigraphy ranked among the printing techniques accepted by the art market as possessing artistic value; the original plots of these same graphics, which had been produced by computer-controlled drawing machines, were, by contrast, not accepted by the mainstream art market as a drawing technique of value at that time.

The artists behind the colorful serigraphs in the portfolio are (clockwise): Ken Knowlton, Hiroshi Kawano, Manfred Mohr, Georg Nees, Frieder Nake, and Manuel Barbadillo.

Availability
Available: price on request

This exhibit presents an edited version of the virtual exhibition launched earlier.

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