Status: 16.11.2023, 17:24 PM
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Daniel Hug is the director of Art Cologne. It is the oldest art fair in the world and is considered the largest German art fair. © Oliver Berg/dpa
Fakes created with AI deceive millions of people on the Internet, chatbots write texts and intelligent weapons destroy on their own. The art world is unmoved and relies on good old painting.
Cologne - "Pulse" is the name of the painting by Berlin artist Markus Selg - and if you've been on the Internet lately, the look might look familiar: Forms that seem familiar at first glance melt into the impossible. A picture that looks so realistic that it is unrealistic again - artificial intelligence is at play here! As a work of art with the support of a clever computer, however, it hangs pretty much alone on the partition wall at Art Cologne. While other industries are shocked by the new possibilities of AI, the art world remains conspicuously calm and stable analogue.
"Painting is very, very present at the moment," says Anke Schmidt of the Federal Association of German Galleries and Art Dealers. "That's definitely the trend." As a result, good old paintings can still fetch the highest prices. "Infinity Nets" by Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama is available for 2.4 million euros, while a Picasso oil painting ("Le peintre et son modèle") is available for 3.75 million euros.
At 12,000 euros, however, the "Pulse" created with the help of AI is a bargain. "It hasn't really arrived yet," says gallery owner Schmidt with regard to the new genre. "But artists will use it more and more," suspects gallery owner Guido Baudach, who is exhibiting "Pulse" at Art Cologne. But the whole AI thing is not such a big step. It all sounds completely new, he says. However, Walter Benjamin's "The Work of Art in the Age of its Technical Reproducibility" will soon be 100 years old. And photographers, for example, also use an apparatus - and the apparatus delivers something. That's how artists like Selg used artificial intelligence: as a tool.
Classical painting with the computer
"I would call it 'collaboration'," says Baudach, referring to the artist-computer relationship. Art Cologne boss Daniel Hug even feels reminded of the Renaissance. There, masters often only painted the details. The rest was then taken over by assistants. Cologne-based gallery owner Falko Alexander, who specializes in digital art, takes a similar view. "This is actually a classic painting - with the computer," he says of the works on display at his stand, which are made digitally but without the help of AI.
But computer support or not, there are no screens hanging on the wall at the booth of the digital cracks, but real pictures on paper or canvas. "I don't think we're quite getting beyond the feel of the old," says Alexander. The principle of uniqueness also plays a role here. The first question many buyers ask is: "Where is this signed?", says Alexander.
In recent months, for example, sensational images such as the deceptively real-looking AI fake of Pope Francis in a hip white down jacket had shocked: So that's how good artificial intelligence is, some people realized. But while in journalism or political communication, for example, there are arguments about what AI is allowed to do and what it is not, the debate in the art world is very quiet. This is still in its infancy, says Anke Schmidt of the German Galleries Association. According to gallery owner Baudach, the fact that this is not talked about as intensively as in other areas could be related to the fact that in art it is more difficult to take someone's work away from them.
There is a small provocation
At Art Cologne, which is open until Sunday, classic formats such as painting continue to be in the foreground. On Thursday, art lovers will stroll past the monumental painting "Counter Jumpers" by British artist Lucy McKenzie or an oil painting by Alice Neel (2 million US dollars). With the category "Art under 5000 euros", however, there are also comparatively affordable works.
"Galleries are the real discoverers of new talent," says gallery owner Schmidt. In the case of the digital artists around Falko Alexander, however, they have allowed themselves a little provocation: There, a computer arm connected to a Macbook continuously draws pictures during the art fair - and scribbles the signature of the artist "Arno Beck" himself. Dpa