Florian Auer⎮[Ray::reTrace]

Since the beginning of industrialization, nothing has changed our lives more radically than the digital revolution. In his work, Florian Auer (b. 1984, lives and works in Berlin) draws a central axis between these two radical "social upheavals" of the 19th and 21st centuries. In his work, he examines the influence of mechanisation, automation and digitization on our individual everyday lives. In the exhibition [Ray::reTrace] he shows three-dimensional, computer-generated folds, based on scenes from Adolph Menzel's (1815-1905) famous painting "Eisenwalzwerk" (1872-1875).

With the help of contemporary media, he draws a parallel to this main work of realism in his new works, both aesthetically and in terms of content. Menzel shows the precarious working conditions of workers at the height of the industrial revolution. For Auer, the contrast in Menzel's painting between the atmospherically illuminated, flowing clothes and their unreal surroundings is the starting point for his fabric pictures. Figurativeness and spatial abstraction merge inseparably into hybrid assemblages of light and materiality. The artificial and hyper-real appearance of the works by Florian Auer refers to a post-digital present in which a progressive alienation of body and work becomes recognizable.