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until 13.06. | #5032ARTatBerlin | AOA;87 contemporary shows from Friday, 24. April 2026 (Opening: 23.03.) the exhibition THE KILLER by the artist Holger Schmidhuber.
With THE KILLER, Holger Schmidhuber transforms the exhibition space into an energy-charged field between the twin poles of a sober-determinist AI system, on the one hand, and gestural-expressive materiality, on the other.
Holger Schmidhuber, INTERGHOST (Palermo, IT), 2026, UV-cured print, varnish, pigment and glass beads on aluminium composite, framed in a 4/40 aluminium stretcher frame, varnished, 75,6 x 104,6 cm | Photo: Studio Holger Schmidhuber
To this end, he covers the neutral white-cube walls with his 3 x 24-meter-large piece THE KILLER on the wall, a digitally generated “wallpaper”. With a shimmering pattern consisting of 49,104 permutations of a graphic symbol, THE KILLER on the wall defines an overarching pictorial space in which Schmidhuber stages selected works from his Black & White Inversions and INTERGHOSTS cycles.
Holger Schmidhuber, White Inversion XXII, 2025, Mixed media on canvas, 75 x 60 cm | Photo: Studio Holger Schmidhuber
These paintings with what is an in part shadowy but manifest, in part amorphous and dissolving visuality, their abstractly applied iridescent streaks and layers of pigments and lacquers, and their vibrant tactile qualities contrast strangely to the machine-like repetitive patterned qualities of the wallpaper.
Holger Schmidhuber, Untitled (Studio Sediments), 2026, Mixed media on a paper plate, 19 x 19 x 5 cm | Photo: Studio Holger Schmidhuber
The painterly materiality takes the front seat here, while behind it the cool AI logic spreads like a super-virus in seemingly infinite mutations across the surface of the wall, resembling a vortex that proceeded inexorably and utterly systematically, refusing to submit to our gaze. Human vs. machine, digital logic vs human intuition and expression.
Holger Schmidhuber, Black Inversion III, 2025, Mixed media on a paper plate, 50 x 40 cm | Photo: Studio Holger Schmidhuber
That said, this Clash of Aesthetics is not, as the exhibition title might suggest, a battle to the death. Instead, this interaction of visual forces develops a quite unique and exciting beauty of its own.
Holger Schmidhuber, AMAZONIAN INTERGHOST, 2026, UV-cured print, varnish, pigment and glass beads on aluminium composite, framed in a 4/40 aluminium stretcher frame, varnished, 121,6 x 181,6 cm | Photo: Studio Holger Schmidhuber
Opening: Thursday, 23. April 2026, 6:00–9:00 pm
Exhibition dates: Friday, 24. April – Saturday, 13. June 2026
To the gallery
Titel image caption: Holger Schmidhuber, THE KILLER wallpaper, 2026, 300 × 2400 cm, Digital printing on wallpaper (24 strips) | Photo: Studio Holger Schmidhuber
Exhibition Holger Schmidhuber – AOA;87 contemporary | Zeitgenössische Kunst in Berlin | Contemporary Art | Exhibitions Berlin Galleries | ART at Berlin
