Almost a month ago, the event dubbed “Wildes Idyll,” featuring cultural initiatives from Mülheim, took place around the Art Museum. The M.F.F. participated with an “Open Copy” workshop led by Anna Hirschmann. The workshop went well, and the entire event was very diverse, but then clouds rolled in—and it started raining really hard. However, after a good hour, it was all over, and Anna’s workshop continued until the end of the event. It’s always cool to see how a simple little copier inspires people to just be creative.

Jürgen recently asked if we were familiar with the screen prints that were made based on five of his copy works. We hadn’t known about them until now. So it’s all the more wonderful that Jürgen donated them to the M.F.F. collection. Many thanks to Kassel!

Ilenia Berti, recipient of the First Step Award from the Verona Academy of Fine Arts, explores the contradictions between original and copy in her mini-zine. The edition was created during her residency at the Museum für Fotokopie and is limited to 15 copies. When unfolded, each zine reveals a unique original copy as a poster inside. In her zine, Berti humorously reflects on the translations between Italian, German, and English, as well as her daily presence at the museum.
Near our 1952 Xerox machine, one can observe the proximity of photocopy to photography through a series of Berti’s experiments. One of these mostly too dark or too light photographs captures how the early relationship between human and machine made an actual depiction of a human within this technical apparatus almost impossible: the human must submit to the facts and long exposure times of the machine. The portrayed individuals blur or disappear entirely, while the folded paper birds, poetically positioned by Berti as a reference, remain in sharp focus. Unlike humans, they allow themselves to be exposed by the machine for a longer period. The fleetingness of movement thus becomes a poetic design element. This creates a direct link to our exhibition Portrait, which explores the inherent obstacle of depicting a human using a machine primarily designed for bureaucratic documents. A human-machine dialogue that artists frequently approach with humor to depict the typical characteristics of reality of both participants. Berti’s work aligns with this theme, vividly demonstrating how artists appropriate the machine’s gaze and reflect on their role.
The “Untitled” series consists of real copies (Realkopien) that emerged from our joint workshops. In it, Berti dedicates herself to the everyday nature of cleaning and its tools. These are things that, much like the copier itself, function best when they go unnoticed. Through real copy and copymotion, rubber gloves and simple splashes of glass cleaner are transformed into stubborn, surreal landscapes. The horizontal glass plate becomes a canvas on which the artist explores the peculiarities of the slow scanner bar, using the copier as an instrument for a new perspective on simple objects.
An interplay of chance and control alienates the ordinary glove on the platen glass. The machine demands stillness and flat documents. The liquid glass cleaner directly on the glass breaks this administrative logic. What began in the workshop as an exercise in copy art becomes an independent tool for Berti.
By including such an original copy in each mini-zine, Berti transfers the fascination of this contradiction directly to the respective owner of the booklet.

In cooperation with the Verona Academy of Fine Arts, Daniele Cudini & Stefanie Zanon
Curated by: Therese Schuleit
Text: Therese Schuleit

To mark the conclusion of the exhibition “Schattenbilder & Technoimagination,” we cordially invite you to the finissage @neuegaleriegladbeck.

“AI and Copy Cultures”
Sunday, August 2nd
3:00 PM – 4:30 PM

Lecture by Pamela C. Scorzin.

Followed by a conversation with Achim Mohne, Klaus Urbons and Therese Schuleit from the @museum_fotokopie in Mülheim.
Moderation: Sabine Maria Schmidt

At last year’s “Between Books,” Nicole Morello from the Mergemeier bookbindery in Düsseldorf was our very nice booth neighbor. She showed Therese and me works by Paul Heimbach—conceptual art that this artist had created in the 1990s using his photocopier. They were very impressive and well thought out. Later, Nicole visited us at the M.F.F. and gave us a book about Heimbach’s work, which had been published in 2009 through the Kunstfonds. Nicole also offered to donate some of the photocopied works from his estate to our collection. Of course, we gladly accepted.

The 80th anniversary of the Mergemeier bookbindery provided the perfect occasion for the handover—and the M.F.F.’s collection is now enriched by several treasures. As the portfolio shown here, “Turbulent Episodes from the Life of an Ink Drop,” impressively demonstrates.

From 5 to 19 August 2026, Ilenia will be an artist-in-residence at the Makroscope Museum in Mülheim an der Ruhr, as the recipient of the First Step Award 2025.

This prestigious residency offers her an important opportunity to further develop her artistic research, experiment with new approaches, and expand her creative practice.

Congratulations to Ilenia on this remarkable achievement, and sincere thanks to the Team of the Academy, Daniele Cudini, Stefanie Zanon and everyone who made this opportunity possible.

During my studies in the early 1970s, Professor Rudi Asmann recommended to his students the little book *Six Fairy Tales from the Brothers Grimm* by David Hockney, illustrated with his small etchings. That was when I first heard of Hockney and bought the beautiful book. Later, I kept coming across his works, such as his prolific Polaroid series. When I first heard and read about Hockney’s copy and fax works around 1988, I was very taken with them. I was also impressed by the rather brilliant statements he made about these works in interviews or books. For Copy Art, this established artist was just as important as Sigmar Polke, because this made this form of artistic practice—which was often not taken seriously at the time—in a sense “socially acceptable.” And when I asked the artist in 1991 for fax works for my book Copy Art, he sent me a fax “by return mail” from Los Angeles to Mülheim. Thank you forever!

The M.F.F. already owns a large number of copy art works by the Mülheim-based artist Gabriele Klages. Yesterday, the artist brought three large-format copy collages and two equally large color copy works from 1989 to the museum as a donation to our collection. She had rediscovered these works in her basement. Thank you very much!

Timm Ulrichs was an artist who corresponded extensively. To avoid having to address his letters by hand every time, he bought the RENA Adressette shown here. It is a handy spirit-carbon duplicator. Using a typewriter, the address was typed onto the master once, whereby a sheet of alcohol-soluble ink transferred the text in mirror image onto the address master. This could then be printed directly onto the envelope up to a hundred times using the Adressette. In 1985, the year the museum opened, he donated it to the M.F.F. Museum für Fotokopie. By then he was probably already using a small Canon photocopier – with which he had also produced his copy work ‘Das Kunstwerk …’ – and address labels. The second RENA in the picture was discovered by Therese and acquired for our collection. It is the ‘Mickey Mouse Edition’ – rather strange: Strange Things!

Timm Ulrichs, who liked to describe himself as a ‘total artist’, died on 29 April 2026. We mourn his passing – and thank him for his contributions to the Museum fuer Fotokopie. For the opening on 29 March 1985, he had contributed his work “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction”, comprising 100 generational copies, and exhibited it again in 1992 as part of “Trivial Machines 1”, a collaboration between the M.F.F. and the Karl Ernst Osthaus Museum (KEOM) in Hagen. The image is taken from a poster and shows the old KEOM building which has been the original Folkwang Museum. His first work, “die photokopie der photokopie der photokopie” (1967/75), was one of the first artworks created using a photocopier in Germany.

Pierluigi Vanozzi is a co-founder of the Post Machina group and belongs to the first generation of Italian artists who also worked with photocopiers. Some of his studies were featured in a book by Bruno Munari, the father of Copy Art in Europe. Our collection includes several works donated by the artist. Luigi’s tattoo work in the photo is from the exhibition “Das Raunen der Sammlung” at the Kunstmuseum Bochum, to which the M.F.F. was invited. A current exhibition by Pierluigi runs through April 30, 2026, at Espacio Belart in Bogotá, Colombia. Art critic Bruno D’Amore discusses the exhibition and has written a short catalog in Spanish, which we would be happy to send via email. We extend our warmest congratulations and wish him every success.

The artist Raoul Doré came to visit from St. Gallen and very quickly became friends with our nameless thermal copier. Raoul has already participated in several Shiny Toys festivals and has known Jan for about 25 years. And he was very interested in the two earliest Haloid-Xerox copiers, which are operated almost entirely by hand. He filmed the copying process, using one of his freshly generated copygraphic drawings as a template. Big-screen cinema in a small format!

Sylvain Lesage teaches at the University of Lille in northern France. He visited the M.F.F. Museum fuer Fotokopie last Thursday and Friday, primarily to conduct research on the history of office photocopying. However, the exchange of information was not one-sided; it also provided new insights for our collection. And Sylvain was a very pleasant person to talk to. We are already looking forward to his next visit.

When photographer Manfred Linke contacted us from Cologne and asked if we might be interested in adding a Canon CLC 500 to our collection, we were quite taken aback. At the time, this second-generation digital color copier from Canon offered creative possibilities like no other. It was the ultimate—and not just for copy artists. It was open to connections: it could be used as a digital printer for computers, but it could also enlarge all formats of analog color slides or copy from overhead transparencies. And it did so with a quality that was unmatched at the time. But this copier weighs a hefty 230 kilograms, and the slide projector is delicate—how were we supposed to transport the CLC 500 to the museum? That’s why we asked the management at Canon Germany for help—and they provided it. Many thanks to Manfred and Canon!

Chemist Dr. Edith Weyde is not as well known as she deserves to be. At M.F.F., we have been celebrating her for almost 40 years. The “Blitzkopie” was just one of her inventions, albeit the most successful. It was the first modern photocopying process, Agfa Copyrapid. For around 50 years (1949-2000), her employer Agfa in Leverkusen brought materials to the constantly booming market – and earned millions from them. Even today, the principle of diffusion transfer reversal discovered by Edith Weyde is still present, namely in the analog instant imaging processes of Fuji and Polaroid. Unfortunately, our book about the inventor is out of print. Nevertheless: smile for the camera, Aunt Edith!

Like Klaus Urbons, Klaus D. Schiemann was a founding member of the artist group “Mütternacht.” Even before he developed the style that made him famous throughout Germany, he also experimented with the photocopier. Ulrike Berkenkopf-Schiemann has now donated the “Macbeth” portfolio to our museum, which Klaus created in the early 1980s using the Canon NP Color. At the time, this color copier was the only one that could handle the DIN A3 format. Klaus had the sheets laminated, which is why they have survived the past 40 years without any signs of aging.

Torben Röse and Nico Bergmann have been active as “The Rapid Publisher” since 2016 – and everyone who takes part in the two artists’ copy parties is thrilled. At the Theater an der Ruhr, copying can begin on Saturday, February 21, 2026, at 2:30 p.m. Tickets are also available online. For €10, you can take part in the workshop – and you’ll get two zines that you helped create. So it’s doubly worthwhile!

Our museum only became what it is today thanks to joint funding from the NRW Foundation and the LVR Rhineland Regional Council. That’s one of the reasons why we were very happy to participate in the “Förderbande” podcast. It is now online, and we are excited to see how listeners react to it. Talking to journalist Marija Bakker was really fun. Please feel free to give us your feedback!

Last autumn, I had the distinct privilege of visiting Pierluigi Vannozzi at his studio in Bologna. Beyond the warm hospitality extended by Pierluigi and his wife, the encounter provided a profound opportunity to re-examine the intersections of chemical and electrografic reproduction and individual and collective artistic agency of a Copyart pioneer.

As a former member of the influential #Postmachina group, Vannozzi occupies a pivotal place in the discourse of machine-mediated art. However, our dialogue revealed a fascinating technical nuance: while much of that era’s output is synonymous with electrographic processes, Vannozzi’s practice also encompasses the use of a specific non-electrographic machine, one that holds particular significance within our own archival research. Stay tuned for more details. We will publish a more elaborated text for #Leavesfromthearchive on our website.

The documentation is funded by @mkw.nrw under the umbrella of Unruly Publishing.
The trip is funded by my curiosity.

This is the fifth essay in an ongoing dialogue between Edward Bateman and Robert Hirsch that critically examines how artificial intelligence is changing creativity, authorship, and the fundamentals of image creation. This time, the focus is on circus pioneer and politician Phineas Taylor Barnum (1810–1890). The introductory video for this essay was created from a still image of showman P. T. Barnum and General Tom Thumb, one of his stars. Barnum understood that people don’t always want the truth, but rather seek a sense of mystery and discovery.

The essays, published online by VASA Projects, offer an artist’s perspective on the changing identity of photography in the age of machine learning and machine image processing. Information on further projects by the authors can be found on their websites: Edward Bateman: http://www.ebateman.com and Robert Hirsch: https://lightresearch.net/light/