Louisa Clement: becoming lost Cat. Kunstmuseum Bonn

The » Representative« behaves in a rather buttoned-up manner: » Don’ t mention it« , she says snappishly, smiles rather smugly and then remains stubbornly silent. There are now five of these AI-programmed manikins, all perfectly modeled on the likeness of their creator Louisa Clement and produced in collaboration with a Chinese company specializing in the manufacture of sex dolls as well as with the Chair of Computational Linguistics at Saarbrü cken University. For precisely this reason, » Louisa« , the » representative« created by artist Louisa Clement, is also somewhat uncanny: fed with the contents of the artist’ s smartphone and furthermore connected to the internet, she does not simply mechanically reproduce prefabricated answers to visitors’ questions, but is also constantly learning and developing ever more complex traits. In the context of her exhibition and the book on the occasion of the Bonner Kunstpreis, Louisa Clement has now turned her attention to just how extensive the possibilities of manipulating human DNA have already become. On the basis of a scholarship in Paris facilitated by the art prize, she has developed the almost ten-minute film » off-target-effect« which, in a mixture of impressive texts, laboratory shots and computer sequences, tells of the (nightmare) dream of a human being who is perfect in every respect.

Barbara J. Scheuermann (*1975, Bonn) is curator and art historian. 2007– 2009 she was curator for contemporary art at the Tate Modern in London, since 2016 she is head of the print room and curator at Kunstmuseum Bonn. Amongst others she published about Hamra Abbas, Christian Boltanski, Juan Munoz, Heidi Specker, and Candice Breitz; her dissertation 2006 about the narrative structures of art focussed on the work of William Kentridge and Tracey Emin. Louisa Clement (*1987, Bonn) uses the means of photography and sculpture to explore the continuing digitalization of human beings. Very concretely, the issue is how this living together looks when people and feelings are replaced by robots and algorithms. She thereby makes radical use of the possibilities of photography and sculpture. She was a student of Andreas Gursky at the Academy in Dusseldorf, exhibited since 2013 at Max Ernst Museum Bruehl, Kunstsammlung North-Rhine Westphalia Dusseldorf, Cite des international des Arts Paris, Wallraf-Richartz Museum Cologne, Sprengel Museum Hannover. Stephan Berg (*1959, Freiburg) is a curator and has been director of the Kunstmuseum Bonn since 2008. He studied German, English and history in Tü bingen, Berlin, Rome, and Freiburg and received his doctorate in 1989 with a dissertation on fantastic literature. He has been an honorary professor at the Braunschweig University of Art since 2004. Barbara J. Scheuermann (*1975, Bonn) is curator and art historian. 2007– 2009 she was curator for contemporary art at the Tate Modern in London, since 2016 she is head of the print room and curator at Kunstmuseum Bonn. Amongst others she published about Hamra Abbas, Christian Boltanski, Juan Munoz, Heidi Specker, and Candice Breitz; her dissertation 2006 about the narrative structures of art focussed on the work of William Kentridge and Tracey Emin.