Artists & Robots

(Paris: RMN, 2017)

For the catalogue for the Artists & Robots exhibition created by the Réunion des musées nationaux and presented at the Astana Contemporary Art Center for EXPO 2017, I wrote the entries for each of the 17 participating artists. 

Press release:

Artists & Robots is an original art exhibition project conceived by the Réunion des Musées Nationaux-Grand Palais, and the very first art show to explore a new page of art history: the robot as the artist. Throughout art history, many artists have dreamt of building a machine capable of producing art works. We can mention the “cyclograveur” by Jean Tinguely (1959), a bicycle for painting. The concept of the “art machine” has always been a part of many artists’ dreams and research. In the second part of the XXth Century and the beginning of the XXIst Century, with the incredible progress of new technologies, artists have found new ways of creating new and innovative art machines.

Artists & Robots presents a selection of works made by art machines, through a variety of research techniques and mediums. In a spectacular and playful space of 733 sq meters, Artists & Robots is like an interactive journey through the dream of contemporary art machines.

The exhibition presents the different mediums and tools of those new art experiences: computers and generative algorithms, interactive artistic software; 3D printing; painting robots; drawing robots; sculpting robots. During the exhibition, some artworks will be made in real time before the eyes of the visitors. The smell of the material, the sound of the engines, and the interaction with the machine. All the senses will be engaged. Rather than addressing the theme of art and science, this exhibition aims to focus on the relationship between humans and machines. Using advances in technology to improve and renew the artist possibilities, Artists & Robots explores a form of art which can be seen as the energy of the future for artists.

This group show presents 17 artists from 13 countries all over the globe. Artists & Robots highlights a universal subject, which is of interest to a new generation of artists from all of the continents. Exhibition curators – Miguel Chevalier, Jerome Neutres (Réunion des musées nationaux – Grand Palais).