With The Assembled Human the Museum Folkwang inquires into the ambivalent relationship between humans and machines. It's a conflicted relationship, fluctuating between utopia and nightmare, and it still influences our present time. From the conveyor belt to cybernetics and today's digital revolution, from Cubism, Futurism, and Constructivism into the recent present with Ed Atkins, Jon Rafman, Avery Singer, or Anna Uddenberg, the show traces the transformation of technology, presenting a wide panorama of artistic visual worlds: human beings as hybrid creatures, blended with their own self-made machines. Featuring 200 works by 100 artists as well as prolific essays, this extensive catalogue goes in-depth into this highly current issue. Artists: Walter Heinz Allner, Bettina von Arnim, Gerd Arntz, Ed Atkins, Giacomo Balla, Joachim Bandau, Lenora de Barros, Willi Baumeister, Thomas Bayrle, Rudolf Belling, Ella Bergmann-Michel, Renato Bertelli, Umberto Boccioni, Wilhelm Braune, John Cage, Helen Chadwick, Computer Technique Group (CTG), Charles A. Csuri, Mariechen Danz, Fortunato Depero, Walter Dexel, Otto Dix, Marcel Duchamp, Raymond Duchamp-Villon, Charles & Ray Eames, Max Ernst, Alexandra Exter, OEyvind Fahlstroem, Harun Farocki, William Allan Fetter, Otto Fischer, Herbert W. Franke, Carl Grossberg, George Grosz, Richard Hamilton, Barbara Hammer, Sidsel Meineche Hansen, Raoul Hausmann, John Heartfield, Lynn Hershman Leeson, Eva Hesse, Lewis Wickes Hine, Heinrich Hoerle, Rebecca Horn, Vilmos Huszar, Boris Ignatowitsch, Fritz Kahn, Wassily Kandinsky, Anne-Mie van Kerckhoven, Friedrich Kiesler, Konrad Klapheck, Jurgen Klauke, Paul Klee, Heinrich Kley, Josh Kline, Iwan Kljun, Gustavs Klucis, Alexander Kluge, Kiki Kogelnik, Germaine Krull, Boris Kudojarow, Helmuth Kurth, Jurgen van Kranenbrock, Maria Lassnig, Fernand Leger, Alice Lex-Nerlinger, Roy Lichtenstein, El Lissitzky, Hilary Lloyd, Goshka Macuga, Rene Magritte, Kasimir Malewitsch, Man Ray, Etienne-Jules Marey, Remy Markowitsch, Caroline Mesquita, Laszlo Moholy-Nagy, Johannes Molzahn, Alexei Morgunow, Martin Munkacsi, Eadweard Muybridge, Otto Neurath, Katja Novitskova, ORLAN, Tony Oursler, Trevor Paglen, Nam June Paik, Eduardo Paolozzi, Georgi Petrusow, Antoine Pevsner, Walter Pichler, Jon Rafman, Robert Rauschenberg, Timm Rautert, Alexander Rodtschenko, Thomas Ruff, Walter Ruttmann, James Shaffer, Arkadi Schaichet, Xanti Schawinsky, Helmut Schenk, Oskar Schlemmer, Nicolas Schoeffer, Franz Wilhelm Seiwert, Avery Singer, Stelarc, Friedemann von Stockhausen, Thayaht, Paul Thek, Jean Tinguely, Patrick Tresset, Anna Uddenberg, Andor Weininger, Erwin Wendt, Hugo von Werden, George Widener. Text in English and German.

Shine allures and awakens desire. As a phenomenon of perception shiny things and materials fascinate and tantalize. They are a formative element of material culture, promising luxury, social distinction and the hope of limitless experience and excess. Since the early twentieth century the mass production, dissemination and popularization of synthetic materials that produce heretofore-unknown effects of shine have increased. At the same time, shine is subjectified as "glamor" and made into a token of performative self-empowerment. The volume illuminates genealogical as well as systematic relationships between material phenomena of shine and cultural-philosophical concepts of appearance, illusion, distraction and glare in bringing together renowned scholars from various disciplines.