Michael Krebber

Over the past four decades, Michael Krebber has consistently sought new paths into and out of painting, always navigating the tension between its supposed exhaustion and its continued existence. In doing so, he has developed a conceptual approach that questions and openly critiques the systems and processes of art through subtle allusions.

Around the year 2000, Krebber attended seminars by Oswald Wiener and Friedrich Wolfram Heubach at the Düsseldorf Art Academy, and subsequently also the first semester of a seminar by Wiener on automata theory.

Among these are Wiener’s working documents, Krebber’s class notes, and his homework assignments.

The photographs, the brochure with diagrams, two postcards, and the press release are ephemera from Krebber’s exhibition at Greene Naftali in New York in late 2024.

“The elements here are the contents of my studio, set up on the ground floor at Greene Naftali. After I had had an idea for how to finally handle and accomplish the task I had defined for myself, and after setting up an experimental arrangement for that, I decided to just switch the power button off and ship this complete painting machine to the gallery and that way to also be rid of it.”

Introspection involves observing processes involved in solving specific tasks within a precise experimental setup. However, this would mean foregoing solutions if one were to focus here on the processes rather than the solving itself.

With these notes, however, Krebber did not intend to demonstrate a renunciation of solutions, but rather possibilities known to him for potentially improving and accelerating machines.

Lecture notes, class notes, homework assignments, ephemera related to
Ghost Trap, 2024
Mixed Media
Dimensions variable