Gottfried Jäger and the Founders of the Generative Photography

Gottfried Jäger and the Founders of the Generative Photography
Jan 21, 2026 – Apr 10, 2026

United States United States — Photography Gallery
16 East 71st Street
New York, NY 10021

Gottfried Jäger and the Founders of the Generative Photography, presented at Sous les Étoiles Gallery from January 21 to April 10, 2026, offers a rare opportunity to revisit a pivotal chapter in the history of photographic abstraction. The exhibition traces the emergence of generative photography as a radical alternative to the expressive traditions that long dominated the medium. Rather than privileging intuition or the singular moment, these artists embraced systems, repetition, and rules, allowing images to unfold through carefully designed processes. An opening reception on January 24 invites viewers to engage directly with this foundational approach to photographic thinking.

At the center of the exhibition stands Gottfried Jäger, whose theoretical and artistic contributions gave generative photography its name and conceptual clarity. His seminal series Pinhole Structures exemplifies this method with remarkable precision. Using simple optical devices and predefined parameters, Jäger produced images that seem at once rigorous and poetic, revealing how minimal interventions can generate complex visual results. These works emphasize photography not as a mirror of reality, but as a system capable of constructing its own visual logic through light, time, and repetition.

Surrounding Jäger’s work are key contributions by earlier pioneers including Roger Humbert, Carl Strüwe, Heinrich Heidersberger, Peter Keetman, Hein Gravenhorst, and Karl Martin Holzhäuser. Working exclusively with analog tools, these photographers explored serial production, mechanical movement, and abstraction decades before digital technologies made such approaches commonplace. Their images, often derived from industrial forms, architectural rhythms, or experimental camera techniques, demonstrate how structure and variation can replace traditional composition while remaining deeply rooted in photographic materiality.

Seen today, these works resonate strongly with contemporary image-making practices driven by algorithms, code, and artificial intelligence. Yet the exhibition underscores that generative thinking in photography did not originate with computers. Instead, it emerged from a disciplined engagement with process and constraint, where creativity was embedded in the design of systems rather than in spontaneous gestures. By revisiting these foundational experiments, Gottfried Jäger and the Founders of the Generative Photography reminds us that many of today’s most advanced visual strategies are grounded in ideas patiently developed long before the digital era.


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