Video Pioneer, Media Sculptor

Wolf Kahlen was born in Aix-la-Chapelle, Germany. From 1960-65 he studied art, art history and philosophy at Freie Universitaet in Berlin and later at Columbia University in New York. His focus in art began with photography but has expanded to include painting, drawing, printing, video, sound, performance, architecture and ethnological documentary video. He is the founder of Video Forum Berlin (1970), ADA I and II (Actions of the avant-garde, 1973), and is the architect and director of the Ruine der Keunste Art Center in Berlin (1982). In 1988, Kahlen initiated the 24-hour artists? radio called Sender Ruine der Kuenste. The Wolf Kahlen Museum of Intermedia Arts has been created in honor of his work.

Since the beginning of his career in 1969, Kahlen has had numerous video and photo exhibitions throughout the world, including his Video Sculptures (1986, Galerie am Koernerpark, Berlin); ?Nothing But Dust? a show of video, photo, sound, and dust installations (1996, Beijing and Shanghai Art Museums); and ?Inhaling Time ? Exhaling Space? (1999, IT Park Gallery, Taipei).

Kahlen is also celebrated for his sixteen video documentaries titled the Thang-stong rGyal-po Series that illuminate the Tibetan influence in the Himalayan countries of Bhutan, Nepal, India, Mongolia, Tibet and China.

"You may open three pages now. Only you are able to see, what you are going to see, nobody else gets the same view. It is a unique threefold piece of art, which you may print out for your collection. It shall be numbered and signed simultaneously in the moment of printing. The first page is an image of My Self (1969), which loses "one pixel" the moment you open it. You can hear and see this. On a second page you will find that pixel you managed to lose, at its original position, but only this is your personal one. On a third page all the pixels lost by you or other users add up to another image, which is a positive of the first negative print with a slight difference. My Self seemed to vanish and returns now. Please, if you wish, sign in the community of collectors: the Public Collection. Only in the totality of all the globally distributed fragments, the entire process of going and coming of My Self can be imagined as a new piece. Leave your name, location and country later."

- Wolf Kahlen