THE KILLER

Berlin
Apr 24 — Jun 13, 2026

THE KILLER
HOLGER SCHMIDHUBER
24 APRIL – 13 JUNE 2026
OPENING: 23 APRIL | 6 – 9 PM
AOA;87 BERLIN


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. 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. 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. 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. 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.