Nikolaus von Wolff: "Poems" II

Promptography on Hahnemühle Fine Art Paper

READERS series from 2023

Size: 50 x 50 cm

Edition: 3 + 1 AP

Signed, titled and edition numbered by the artist in pencil on the verso.

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Jack Kerouac, symbolic figure of the Beat Generation, appears in this image as a silent presence: a young woman reads his poems , her breath condensing in front of her face like a visible rhythm, a poem of fog and transience. Faces full of curiosity and impatience crowd around her, while she remains undeterred in the world of words. Von Wolff condenses the essence of Beat literature here: being on the move, distancing oneself from the noise of the outside world, the search for an inner rhythm. But this work too betrays the signature of artificiality - the moment too perfect, the composition too balanced, the message too clear. The AI ​​writes along by creating the semblance of a documentary memory that never existed. In this friction between literary myth and visual simulation lies the philosophical core: truth appears as mood, not as fact.

The Readers series can thus be understood as a poetic archaeology of reading. Von Wolff conjures up an age in which books in public spaces simultaneously created intimacy and distance, while simultaneously reflecting on the conditions of image production in the 21st century. What at first glance appears to be a found historical document turns out to be a digitally generated memory – more precise and uncanny than any photograph. Reading here becomes a metaphor for self-absorption, the image a metaphor for our longing for authenticity. Readers thus addresses questions that concern literature, philosophy, and media art equally: How does meaning emerge? What makes an image credible? And to what extent does technology shape not only what we see, but also how we remember? It is in this field of tension that the true power of the series unfolds – as a silent reflection on our relationship to the past, fiction, and reality.