Art as Communication or The Art of Communication
Humankind has always had an irrepressible urge to express itself artistically—to carve messages into stone and erect monumental structures as witnesses of its respective high cultures for future generations. And while posterity agrees that all of this must have meant something important, it does not agree on what it meant. In this sense, art becomes a messenger of long-lost cultures. Art serves as a means of communication across time and as an expression of the society in which it was created.
The relics we discover today—rock engravings, cave paintings, architectural structures, reliefs, tomb paintings—fill modern viewers with awe at the skills of our ancestors and present us with puzzles about their meaning and interpretation.
Gerd Rehme draws on these artistic expressions of humanity, spanning several millennia. His attention is captured equally by Stone Age petroglyphs and the monumental stone sculptures of the Maori on the distant Easter Islands, as well as by famous paintings from artists such as Max Beckmann, Gustav Klimt, and Amedeo Modigliani from our own cultural sphere. To him, they represent statements of their respective societies and times and become starting points for his own art.
He reinterprets them through the lens of our contemporary era, collaging computer and electronic components into key areas of the image. At the same time, he juxtaposes delicate painting and fine computer parts with the rough technique of woodcut printing, working with the primal force of engraving and carving.
For several years, Gerd Rehme has explored in his works the impact of the digital world and artificial intelligence on the human being. The computer parts function as symbols of the modern communication society and act as transmitters of data—although we cannot tell from their appearance what information they once conveyed. What we can see, however, are the messages conveyed by Gerd Rehme’s images.
He has taken on a highly relevant contemporary theme and developed a new visual language to express it. For this achievement, I am very pleased to name Gerd Rehme as my Master Student.
Ute Wöllmann, Director of the Academy
Berlin, July 2025
