RIVALS: Iconic Artworks Flamingone and The Electrician Side by Side for Groundbreaking Exhibition

The viral artworks that sparked public discourse around AI are paired up for a new exhibition that aims to close a curatorial gap in the art world.

BERLIN, March 3, 2025 - Artists Boris Eldagsen and Miles Astray announced today that their viral works The Electrician and F L A M I N G O N E are on display together as part of a unique exhibition for the European Month of Photography in Berlin. RIVALS - Photography vs. Promptography pits both mediums against one another for the first time to show the possibilities and limitations of each and close a curatorial gap in the art world, which has not yet addressed the rapidly evolving relationship between photography and AI-promptography.

Both works had sparked public discourse around AI when they won awards in competitions they were snuck into. Eldagsen's AI-generated image had won the creative category of the 2023 Sony World Photo Awards, while Astray's real photograph received two distinction in the AI-category of the 1839 Awards in 2024. Using opposite angles, both stunts put a spotlight on the impact of generated imagery that is indistinguishable from photographs.

The exhibition is curated by Eldagsen in cooperation with Photo Collection Berlin and Guelman und Unbekannt gallery. "I think that photo festivals and institutions have an obligation to their audience to clarify the relationship between photography and promptography. Curators are not yet fulfilling this task. That's why I put together an exhibition that provides answers to these important questions: What is the strength of photography that AI cannot replace? What can AI do that photography can't," says Eldagsen who invited 18 photographers and 18 AI-artists to represent approaches unique to each field. Like the work of an artist with multiple sclerosis who can best visualize the feeling of her condition through AI; or the work of a photographer who captures the very process of photography by letting the sun burn his films. According to Eldagsen, "the exhibition works as a toolbox that the photography and promptography community can use and develop to further differentiate the strength of each medium."

While half the space is dedicated to photographs across various truth-seeking genres like documentary, the other half shows the vanguard of AI-artistry. Photographic themes include presence, perception, and striving for objectivity, while the AI images evolve around themes like overcoming the laws of nature, becoming conscious of oneself, and conceptual art. The two disciplines converge in the middle, where The Electrician and F L A M I N G O N E hang side by side to stake out the transitional borderland between both worlds. "I'm very glad to participate in this important and not-been-done-before exhibition alongside such a diverse group of artists, using completely different approaches not just across the two mediums but also through differing techniques and artistic visions within each category," says Astray. He continues: "Art is what you see in it, and there's a lot to see here."

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The exhibition runs until March 31, opening times: daily, noon - 8pm. Free admission. Closed on March 5.

Galerie Guelman und Unbekannt
Mittelstrasse 53
10117 Berlin

Miles Astray
14 Rue du Moulin Joly
Paris, France

Press contact:

Miles Astray
contact@milesastray.com
www.milesastray.com

Miles Astray is a multidisciplinary art activist, combining writing and photography inspired by a slow and immersive journey around the world that started in 2012.

Boris Eldagsen is a photomedia artist investigating the unconscious mind. In search of the timeless, his visual poetry unites the sublime and the uncanny.

This release was published on openPR.