KMFA Lecture | Von Wolff (馮．沃爾夫) and Artistic Philosophy in the AI Era: Contemporary Clash of Traditional Creation, Generative AI, and "Curatorial Translation"

Echoing the international special exhibition "The Garden Fortress of Von Wolff (馮·沃爾夫)," the KMFA (Kaohsiung Museum of Fine Arts) Lecture uses "Opening the Cabinet of AI Curiosities" as a sub-theme. While the world is heatedly discussing the impact of AI on human civilization and life, Taiwan, as a key location for global chip manufacturing, will look back at the role AI plays in human creative civilization. This series of lectures uses Taiwan's local development experience to respond to the stage where artists began to invest in the fusion of generative AI algorithms and oil painting creation.

The aesthetic quality of "Ultra-Modern Romanticism" in Von Wolff's works cleverly links several centuries of artistic practice, thereby challenging the simple binary opposition between "tradition and modernity" or "humans and artificial intelligence." Through his works, one can not only appreciate the "irreplaceable sensory and aesthetic experience" presented by oil painting but also perceive how AI introduces "essentially subversive or anachronistic elements," which in turn leads to a "strange and dreamy" hybrid aesthetic.

Based on this, the speaker attempts to analyze Von Wolff's entire production process from AI-generated ideas to the physical realization of oil paintings through concepts such as "the curatorial," "surfaces of (re)production," and "backstage and processuality" from the perspective of museums and curation outside the exhibition hall and in the lecture hall. This process is viewed as a dynamic "curatorial event" negotiated and translated by multiple elements, while deeply reflecting on how the final presentation of the work serves as a new "representation" of artistic aesthetic knowledge and meaning.

The speaker will not only analyze Von Wolff's artistic philosophy but will also practically discuss ethical debates and intellectual property issues brought by "AI art" from the perspective of digital archiving and translation. Through Von Wolff's practice, the speaker will reflect on how contemporary art responds to the accelerated iteration of technology and how it continues to strive to explore the boundaries of human perception and creativity.

This lecture aims to invite the audience to jointly discuss and participate in the contemporary clash and artistic philosophy of traditional creation, generative AI, and "curatorial translation" by understanding the new window of AI art and the future development of museums/art museums.