Basic Info
Name: Alexandre Vitkine
Country of Origin: DE
Description
Alexandre Vitkine (1910-2014), trained as an engineer, was born in Berlin to Russian immigrant parents and spent his childhood in Copenhagen, before moving to Paris in the 1930s. When World War II erupted he joined the Foregien Legion. By the early 1950s, Vitkine had foregone work as an engineer to become a photographer. He was a member of the Club des 30 x 40 , created by Roger Doloy, where he developed a highly personal style of black-and-white photographs of industrial silhouettes. By 1960, Vitkine had created the method to meld his passion of mathematics and engineering to photography, in the meantime becoming one of the pioneers of generative photography.
Vitkine was exhibited in several key shows of computer art in the 1970s and 1980s, including Artiste et Ordinateur in Paris, Electra (Paris Museum of Modern Art, curated by Frank Popper) and Cybernetic Serendiptity in San Francisco. Recently, his work has attracted renewed attention among museums with the exhibitions of his work at shows at the Pompidou Centre, Tate Modern and
Alexandre Vitkine’s adventures in electronic art began in the 1960s. He became a recognized pioneer in these new media and would devote the rest of his life to this emerging art. He created oscilloscopes and manipulated television screens with signals sent via circuits of his own. As an artist engineer, he developed an instrument which allowed to transform voices and sounds into images. He was invited to show his work at events such as Cybernetic Serendipity, Ars Electronica and Electra in Paris. Recently, his work was featured in “Shape of Light” at Tate Modern (2018) and also purchased by the Centre Pompidou and the Musée d’Art Moderne of Paris.
ALEXANDRE VITKINE: ELECTRIC PHOTOGRAPHY FROM THE 1960’s, featuring an extraordinary collection of images Vitkine made with electronic machines and computers to explore the limits of the medium. The exhibition coincides with the second edition of Photo Days, a Parisian in-gallery photography event organized by former photography curator at the Museum of Modern Art, Paris, Emmanuelle de l’Ecotais.
