Nikolaus von Wolff: "Privilege and law"

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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An elderly woman reads Privilege and Law with concentration, while outside the rain veils the streets of an Asian metropolis. The scene is of quiet intensity: inside the act of reading, outside the hustle and bustle of the city, condensed in the drops on the window pane. The work reveals a dialectical tension: privilege and law are concepts of the power order that structure the lives of many, and it is precisely in contrast to this anonymous urban backdrop that the reader gains dignity and weight. But the clarity of the gaze, the texture of the space, the perfect balance between foreground and background unmistakably point to the intervention of the AI. Von Wolff thus interweaves legal-political theory with the question of authenticity: which orders determine what is considered "true" - in the legal system as well as in the image?

In this respect, the Readers series is a laboratory of vision. What appears to be a documentary archive of urban reading scenes is in fact a web of nostalgia, simulation, and critical reflection. The black-and-white aesthetic references documentary photography of the 1980s, while the digital flawlessness undermines any supposed authenticity. Von Wolff uses AI not as a mere tool, but as a conceptual partner that blurs the line between memory and fiction. Reading appears as a metaphor for self-assurance, while the images themselves destabilize this self-assurance. Thus, Readers becomes a meditation on power and truth: the power of laws, the power of images, and the power of technologies that reshape our perception.