To say goodbye to my uncle, Florian Schneider, co-founder and electrical pioneer of the band Kraftwerk, in 2020 I met the artist, Emil Schult, "the eye of Kraftwerk."

 

He is a long-time friend of the family, so we reminisced about our times together and forged new plans. As a gift he brought his book "Fluxus to Future" with him, 2 kilos of art history by Emil Schult.

 

 

As a vegetarian and a friend of beautiful fashion, he immediately supported my sustainable concept of reviving my grandfather's watercolors as a tribute and printing them on organic cotton with drinkable organic colors, PETA vegan approved. He spontaneously offered me to choose one of his art works and add it to my collection.

 

Since the band Kraftwerk will celebrate their 50th anniversary in 2020, as well as with the Vinyl Trans Europe Express, it makes sense to dedicate the LP cover with the TEE train as a logo designed by Emil as a homage to Florian with my new collection.

 

This is how our cooperation came about.

 

I decided on two graphic variants that I implemented for the fabric print;

"TEE big" in the style of the 20s, very straightforward, broken with big curves, which envelops the whole body as a total print.

The counterpart "TEE Karo", Emil's wish, were trains going back and forth, which I graphically interpreted in a clear and classic checked pattern.

 

Both prints can be combined in many ways and are stylish even with one another.

 

The colors are not only adapted from the record cover, the chocolatey dark tone is the trend color in winter 2021/22 and a bitter-sweet consolation for the death of my uncle Florian.

 

The collection consists of casual unisex items such as t-shirts, joggers and shirts, mixed with casual-business approved items such as dresses, blouses, skirts and elegant PJ pans, each with an elastic band, suitable for home office, physical meetings, going out or couch surfing.

 

 

About Emil Schult

Emil Schult (* 1946) is a painter, poet and audiovisual artist whose work ranges from drawings and texts in the spirit of Fluxus to texts and record covers that shape pop history to reverse glass paintings that reflect human existence.

 

During his studies at the Düsseldorf Art Academy, his teachers Dieter Roth, Joseph Beuys and Gerhard Richter supported Schult's poetic approach to art. In 1972 Emil Schult began his artistic collaboration with the Kraftwerk founders Ralf Hütter and Florian Schneider. As artist friends, they created the music comic for the album “Ralf and Florian” and artwork for “Autobahn”, “Radioactivity” and other graphics.

 

In the next few years of their collaboration, they also wrote texts and phonetic poetry for 'Autobahn', 'Radioactivity', 'The Model', 'Pocket Calculator', 'Computer World' et al.

In 1979 Schult deepened his studies in computer music at the Stanford Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, Stanford University, CA, USA.

 

Schult has been working with video and computer-animated images since the mid-1980s and has taken up the old Chinese technique of painting behind glass. Schult's focus is on the visionary potential of art, and his most recent paintings reflect the connection between humans, the electronic microcosm and the vastness of space.

 

Emil Schult has recently shown solo exhibitions at the Osthaus Museum Hagen, DE; Burchfield Penny Art Center, Buffalo, NY, USA; Rauschenberg Gallery at Florida South Western State College, Fort Myers, FL, USA; Heinz Nixdorf MuseumsForum, Paderborn, DE; Institute for Electronic Art at Alfred University, NY, USA; University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, IL, USA.

 

He was visiting professor at the Institute for Electronic Arts at Alfred University NY, USA.

 

 

His recent participations in group exhibitions include Deichtorhallen, Hamburg, DE; House of World Cultures, Berlin; DE, Buchholz Gallery New York, USA; Zhang Zhou International Contemporary Art Exhibition, CHN; Kunsthalle Düsseldorf, DE; Hombroich rocket station, Neuss, DE; Tampa Art Museum, FL, USA; Julia Stoschek Foundation, Düsseldorf, DE; et al.

 

 

Schult has been working with Emma Nilsson as TRANSHUMAN ART CRITICS since 2017. In 2019 Lothar Manteuffel and Max Dax joined the audiovisual project. TRANSHUMAN ART CRITICS consider the development of electronic music and art from the perception of improved people.

 

 

The observations are presented as audio-visual pieces in which the archaeological finds merge with the knowledge of the future.