FLORIAN KUHLMANN ← curation & projects

2013 – 2025

collaborations

Shows made together with and alongside others — from co-curated exhibitions to works shown in group and public-space contexts, where the work emerges from the exchange rather than from a plan.

AUTOMATIC DREAMS, Galerie Wundersee 2021 — the long white folded-paper sculpture running the length of the gallery
AUTOMATIC DREAMS, Galerie Wundersee, 2021 — with Gretta Louw and Sebastian Schmieg: the folded-paper sculpture running the length of the gallery.

the idea

shows from the exchange

None of the co-curated ones started from a strict curatorial concept. They began the way things tend to begin in art: artists get in touch, talk about what they are working on, a third joins through a project, a fourth opens a gallery. You talk, you throw your works together in a video call — and are surprised how well they fit. They fit because the interest runs both ways.

Collected here are shows Florian Kuhlmann made together with or alongside others — from co-curated exhibitions with befriended artists to works shown within group and public-space contexts. A recurring figure across two of the early ones is the artist Timothy Shearer.

co-curated shows

six exhibitions

2013

lsdsl — the worst tumblr ever

Gold & Beton, Ebertplatz, Cologne · a collaboration with Timothy Shearer. The gallery as the worst tumblr ever: walls papered with internet imagery, tablets and screens, a projected "SOCIAL MEDIA MANAGER vs YOUNG EMERGING ARTIST", and a bottled beer edition — net culture spilling from the screen into a basement space and out onto the square

LSDSL — the gallery wall reading 'THIS THE WORST TUMBLR EVER', papered with internet images
LSDSL — projection 'SOCIAL MEDIA MANAGER vs YOUNG EMERGING ARTIST'
LSDSL — the bottled beer edition on a pedestal
full documentation (9 photos)
LSDSL — wall papered with LSDSL logos and internet imagery LSDSL — a collage with 'War in the Gulf' and rock iconography LSDSL — a tablet installation among energy drinks and spray cans LSDSL — a screen reading 'EVER!!!' LSDSL — a striped object on the gallery wall LSDSL — a ping-pong table among the crowd LSDSL — the Gold + Beton roller shutter, the crowd outside on Ebertplatz LSDSL — Ebertplatz at night, bikes parked outside the space LSDSL — the packed opening

GOLD+BETON, Ebertplatzpassagen ↗

2018

high res low brow

Institut für moderne Kunst, Nürnberg · with Götz Gramlich, Florian Kuhlmann and Timothy Shearer. A spaceship into the metamodern: a present that oscillates between a striving for perfection, smoothness and shine (high resolution) and an internet turned moloch of fake news and trolling (low brow). Tweets materialise on the walls, log-in screens end up on a onesie. Text by Joshua Groß

HIGH RES LOW BROW — the wall text 'WELL THE INTERNET TOLD ME IT WAS OK' beside a crowd photo-wall
HIGH RES LOW BROW — Timothy Shearer's printed bomber jackets, the demolished Pruitt-Igoe housing
HIGH RES LOW BROW — a lightbox spelling REALITY in shifting colours
full documentation (9 photos)
HIGH RES LOW BROW — installation view with the internet photo-wall and a small figure HIGH RES LOW BROW — 'WELL THE INTERNET TOLD ME IT WAS OK' by the storefront window HIGH RES LOW BROW — a onesie printed with log-in screens, hanging in the space HIGH RES LOW BROW — red framed works, 'ONLY THE BOTS KNOW THE TRUTH' HIGH RES LOW BROW — the two red framed pixel works in detail HIGH RES LOW BROW — tweets materialised on the wall beside the crowd photo HIGH RES LOW BROW — an installation of energy-drink cans and a book, 'NETWORKING' HIGH RES LOW BROW — a laptop and a printed sheet on the floor HIGH RES LOW BROW — a single printed bomber jacket on the wall

Institut für moderne Kunst — high res low brow ↗

2021 / 22

automatic dreams

Galerie Wundersee, Düsseldorf · 3 Dec 2021 – 5 Mar 2022 · with Gretta Louw and Sebastian Schmieg. The show began with a friendly email from Gretta Louw in June 2021 — no fixed concept, just an exchange that turned into a Gesamtkunstwerk. AI-generated cloud paintings, wall texts ("rational thinking is boring", "hey google, shut up", "is it not time we spoke of laborious intelligence?"), a long folded-paper sculpture, and a Tezos NFT edition in the basement — one of Düsseldorf's first physical NFT shows

AUTOMATIC DREAMS — wall text 'RATIONAL THINKING IS BORING' framing a swirling AI image
AUTOMATIC DREAMS — gallery overview, the long white folded-paper sculpture running through the space
AUTOMATIC DREAMS — Florian Kuhlmann and Gretta Louw at the opening, in front of a cloud painting
full documentation (11 photos)
AUTOMATIC DREAMS — the gallery seen down its length, works and folded-paper sculpture AUTOMATIC DREAMS — the folded-paper sculpture in detail AUTOMATIC DREAMS — an AI-generated cloud painting with a starfish form AUTOMATIC DREAMS — a cloud painting in the corner, standing text panels beside it AUTOMATIC DREAMS — standing panels: 'is it not time that we spoke of laborious intelligence?' AUTOMATIC DREAMS — a panel reading 'HEY GOOGLE! SHUT UP' AUTOMATIC DREAMS — a wall of dense text beside a cloud painting AUTOMATIC DREAMS — a set of framed drawings AUTOMATIC DREAMS — a screen laid into the floor AUTOMATIC DREAMS — visitors at the opening in front of the starfish 'X' painting AUTOMATIC DREAMS — Florian Kuhlmann and Gretta Louw at the opening

Galerie Wundersee — automatic dreams ↗

2023

kunstbasis — in public space

Kunstbasis, Ebertplatz, Cologne · a group exhibition. Kuhlmann works in public space: the shop windows and passages of the Ebertplatz underpass become carriers for text works — Consciousness as an Interface, It's Learning to Think — How Will You Colab, No More Dreams / Just Reality. The sentences stand where displays and advertising usually hang, borrowing their tone in order to tip it over; the passage between platform, shopfronts and square becomes a comment on a public sphere turned interface. Photos: Martin Plüddemann

Shop window in the Ebertplatz passage reading CONSCIOUSNESS AS AN INTERFACE
Passage with the text ITS LEARNING TO THINK — HOW WILL YOU COLAB
Underpass with the text works NO MORE DREAMS and JUST REALITY
full documentation (4 photos)
Wide view of the passage with CONSCIOUSNESS AS AN INTERFACE Shop window with ITS LEARNING TO THINK — HOW WILL YOU COLAB Text work JUST REALITY beside the underpass stairs NO MORE DREAMS wall work in the underpass
2023

tribute to guy

Neonreal Gallery, Düsseldorf · 2023 · a collaboration with the Flux collective. A language-based conceptual work and a tribute to Guy Debord: the piece is a single sentence — A Picture of a Dollar Saved as JPG on the Bitcoin Blockchain — set in Arial Bold, black on white or white on black, and minted as an NFT. Beside it a placard rewrites Debord for the present: the spectacle is capital accumulated to the point that it becomes images.

TRIBUTE TO GUY — the artist seated before the wall text A PICTURE OF A DOLLAR SAVED AS JPG ON THE BITCOIN BLOCKCHAIN
TRIBUTE TO GUY — installation view at the Neonreal Gallery, the wall text and the definition placard
Placard: the spectacle is capital accumulated to the point that it becomes images
full documentation (6 photos)
TRIBUTE TO GUY — installation view with the definition placard and the blue-lit wall text TRIBUTE TO GUY — the two placards in detail: the purchase definition and the Debord line TRIBUTE TO GUY — the wall text A PICTURE OF A DOLLAR SAVED AS JPG ON THE BITCOIN BLOCKCHAIN TRIBUTE TO GUY — the wall text under warm gallery light TRIBUTE TO GUY — the wall text, a second view The work itself: the sentence A PICTURE OF A DOLLAR SAVED AS JPG ON THE BITCOIN BLOCKCHAIN in Arial Bold
2025

western gods

Falko Alexander, Cologne · opening 13 February 2025 · a collaboration with the painter and sculptor Dennis Rudolph. The show asks whether the West has declined into a set of faded idols, and proposes that technology breeds new gods — users as cyborg-like beings, Silicon Valley as a modern Olympus. Rudolph contributes DAS PORTAL — At the End of the World, a VR reworking of Rodin's Gates of Hell anchored by a cast bronze bust; Kuhlmann answers with his Metamodern Trigrams, digital collages from the binary figures of the I Ching in red, green and blue. The common line: The West is Dead, Long Live the West. Photos: Fotostudio Helle Kammer

Screenshot from Dennis Rudolph's VR work DAS PORTAL — a chrome portal in a desert landscape
Dennis Rudolph's cast bronze bust on a plinth beneath the words LONG LIVE THE WEST
Kuhlmann's luminous light-box work DEAR DIGITAL GODS — I CAN'T PAINT
full documentation (6 photos)
Bronze bust beside a luminous token screen Bronze bust on a plinth, behind it THE WEST IS DEAD Detail of the cast bronze figure Darkened room with the projection THE WEST IS DEAD and the bronze bust on its plinth Detail of Kuhlmann's illuminated screen work in blue and purple Dennis Rudolph's VR work DAS PORTAL projected, the bronze bust in front

Falko Alexander — Western Gods ↗ Dennis Rudolph — The Portal ↗

projects — floriankuhlmann.com