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A timely showcase of early computer drawing and painting in the age of generative AI, “Harold Cohen: AARON” opens at New York’s Whitney Museum. Curated by Christiane Paul, it honours Cohen’s pioneering 1970s and ’80s process, with recreations of his plotters running live in-gallery (each operating different versions of the AARON software) alongside key works. “Cohen used to joke that he would be the only artist ever who posthumously makes work,” says Paul of the late artist’s enduring prescience.

Indian artist Rohini Devasher publishes a reflection on her recent CERN residency, outlining efforts to move beyond the standard model of fundamental forces in particle physics—and in her practice. Devasher draws a connection between the “multiplication, magnification, distortion” that black holes rip in space-time with video feedback and shares drawings that map the implications of the “new modes and methodologies of research and practice” she was exposed to in Geneva (image: Beyond the Standard Model, 2023).

Resurfacing fabled 18th century partially-dissected wax figures used in the study of anatomy, “Cere Anatomiche” opens at Fondazione Prada Milan, presenting four anatomical venuses and 72 drawings from the La Specola collection alongside a companion film by David Cronenberg. Entitled Four Unloved Women, Adrift on a Purposeless Sea, Experience the Ecstasy of Dissection, the Canadian director’s short dwells on how the figures’ uncanny “body language and facial expressions do not display pain or agony.”

“Kim Jung Gi left us less than [a week ago] and AI bros are already ‘replicating’ his style and demanding credit. Vultures and spineless, untalented losers.”
– Comic-book writer Dave Scheidt, blasting the release of an AI model trained on the renowned South Korean illustrator’s work within days after his passing. “In effect, manga and anime are acting as an early testing ground for AI art-related ethics and copyright liability,” notes reporter Andrew Deck in his analysis.

“*(s)twerH,” a show featuring Canadian artist Andrew Maize’s eponymous experimental drawing lab, opens at MacLaren Art Centre in Barrie, Canada. Exploring “fans, charcoal and aerodynamics to create improvised drawing tools” for years (image: Aerial Chessboard #2, 2020), the show presents Maize and peers working in-space to generate ephemeral forms via “turbulence, tumult, turmoil, turbine, and storm,” and inviting viewers to participate in the process.

Swiss media artist Jürg Lehni shares a glimpse of his robotic drawing machine Otto (2015) at work at Museum für Gestaltung Zürich. As part of “Planet Digital,” Lehni and historian Monika Dommann have the device trace historical diagrams that represent motion (e.g. traffic plans, ballet notation) to delineate “A Visual History of Flow.” The drawing in progress is the Dench Blues Double Pattern from the International Committee for Artistic Roller Skating rule book.

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“Like all our favourite artists on Art Blocks, Sol LeWitt wrote an algorithm that can be followed to create an infinite number of variations on the same artwork. The main difference is that LeWitt’s Wall drawings are written in plain English and executed by a team of gallery installers, rather than written in code and executed by a web browser.”
– Artist Mitchell F. Chan, linking the legacy of conceptual art with blockchain-based generative art
“Looking back, Virginia Pepperweed (Lepidium virginicum) was really important to me. It thrived on petroleum-soaked copper soil and looked like a desert plant in the urban summer heat.”
Andrea Haenggi, artist, choreographer, and Environmental Performance Agency co-founder, on the origins of her Urban Weeds Alphabet, a series of gesture-driven drawings “co-created with 20 spontaneous urban plants”
“There was a heightened atmosphere in the room when I erased it, and I almost cracked.”
– Lucienne Rickard, on completing her 16-month long Extinction Studies at the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery, during which she meticulously drew—and erased—38 lost species. The last to go: a depiction of the Australian swift parrot, of which fewer than 300 remain in the wild.
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