KRAFTWERK

Kraftwerk are considered to be pioneers in electronic music and an endless source of inspiration for a wide range of musical genres: from Electro to Hip Hop, from Techno to SynthPop. They have made musical history and achieved recognition all over the world for more than four decades now. Kraftwerk created the soundtrack for the digital age of the 21st century. Since their beginnings in the early Seventies they worked with the latest achievement of modern technologies, produced revolutionary electronic sound paintings and experimented with synthetic sounds, voices and automatic mechanical rhythms. They composed sound poetry with highly reduced-condensed texts and programmed their robot image as an expression for the theme of a world dominated by machines and computers.

Right from the start, Kraftwerk regarded their concert performances as complete audio-visual events. The Kraftwerk sound and image has been a long-term influence not only in music, but also in the world of contemporary visual art. Texts, style, and media-reflective strategies incorporated the themes and issues of the information era, namely the interaction between men and machines

Kraftwerk was founded in Dusseldorf in 1970 by Ralf Hütter (*1946) and Florian Schneider (1947—2020). US tours include in 2016, 2015, 2014, 2012, 2008 and 2005, South America in 2016, 2014, 2009 and 2004, Australia and New Zealand in 2013, 2008 and 2003, Japan in 2019, 2013, 2004 and 2002. They performed at the Venice Biennale in 2005. Multimedia presentations include a 3-D video installation at Kunstbau Lenbachhaus, Munich (2011) and a 3-D concert series ‘1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8’, which was performed at MoMA, New York (2012), Tate Modern, London (2013), Kunstsammlung NRW, Dusseldorf (2013), Moderna Museet, Stockholm (2014), Neue Nationalgalerie, Berlin (2015), and Museo Guggenheim, Bilbao (2016).

Courtesy Sprüth Magers