serigraph, untitled, 1972
Serigraph
70 × 70 cm
edition of 250
Collection of Bre Pettis
PION.2018.027
Description
One of the MBB Computer Graphics serigraphs — the 1971–72 project in which the aerospace company Messerschmitt-Bölkow-Blohm let a group from its Ottobrunn computing department make art on company iron: engineers Frank Böttger, Aron Warszawski, and Rolf Wölk, and painter Sylvia Roubaud working with programmer Gerold Weiss, initiated by Winfried Fischer. Programs in FORTRAN IV ran on an IBM 360 Model 50 and were drawn by the Kongsberg Kingmatic — at 2 × 6 meters the largest computerized drawing machine of its time in Europe — then editioned as serigraphs. The prints were published in Johann Willsberger's Computer Graphics (1972, published by MBB itself) and intended as a contribution to the cultural program of the 1972 Munich Olympics; the group showed at Tendencies 5 in Zagreb in 1973 and dissolved when the project ended. This sheet is attributed to Aron Warszawski, the group's most elusive member; his one documented solo title from the project is Families of Circles (1972). Acquired from the Ragnar Digital Art Collection.
Sources: https://www.heikewerner.com/exhibits/computer-art-1972 · https://zkm.de/en/persons/mbb-computer-graphics
The image that stood in for this print until August 2026 was a dealer's framed mockup on a white brick wall, which showed it as a portrait rectangle. The sheet is in fact square, 70 × 70 cm; the photographs here are of the work itself in the collection's flat file.
The MBB project was folded into the cultural programme for the 1972 Munich Olympic Games; the group exhibited that year in the company canteen at Ottobrunn and at the Olympics' Musik/Film/Dia/Licht-Festival.
DAM invoice 18-03-21 (14 March 2018) lists this as "Aron Warszawski, serigraph, edition of 250, 70 x 70 cm, 1972" — bought in the same order as the Roubaud and Böttger/Warszawski serigraphs. The 70 × 70 sheet size is the gallery's own, which settles the open question of whether these are the 34 × 34 portfolio prints: they are not.
Renumbered from PION.2026.094 to PION.2018.027 on 15 August 2026: DAM invoice 18-03-21, 14 March 2018 places the purchase in 2018, and inventory numbers here carry the acquisition year.
