- Paul Kolling is an artist based in Berlin, and a founding member of terra0. His solo practice examines the social and spatial politics of infrastructure. In his work, Kolling conjures new perspectives and ways of reading the visual field, cultivating questions about the very nature of mediated perception. Often fusing analog and digital technologies, he works across film, video, installation, and sculpture to explore how particular perspectives and realms of possibility are foregrounded or obscured through the functioning of complex infrastructure. What is made visible via the ways of seeing afforded by new — or old — technology? What imaginaries are made real through depictions of the world? These considerations touch on both natural and man-made environments, emphasizing the ways in which perception, recording, and classification are sites where the struggle of power and agency can unfold.
Kolling's work have been presented at the 58th Carnegie International, the 17th International Architecture Exhibition — La Biennale di Venezia, Canadian Centre for Architecture Montreal, The Shed New York City, Kunstverein Hamburg, Kunstverein Harburger Bahnhof, Weltmuseum Wien, Kunsthalle Zürich, Francisco Carolinum Linz, Chronus Art Center Shanghai, Furtherfield Gallery London, and Schinkel Pavillon Berlin among others. - For a full CV, portfolio requests and available works, please get in contact via mail. For incomplete, erratic content follow twitter and instagram.
- 2025
Merit
47m Leipzig - 2024
Nadir
Kunstverein München - 2022
Westwärts
Kunsthalle Memmingen - A tree; a corporation; a person (public sculpture)
Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh - Strukturversagen
Galerie 14a - 2020
WB190621 (permanent installation)
The Palace and Maritime Silk Road Museum, Fujian - Break of Gauge
Kunstverein Harburger Bahnhof - 2018
Flowertokens
Trust, Berlin
Solo exhibitions & permanent installations
- 2024
kinship
KIN Brussels - Digital Arts Zurich Festival - DA Z
Schule Für Gestaltung, Zürich - Survival in the 21st Century
Deichtorhallen Hamburg - 2023
Cryptomania. Promises of the Blockchain
Zeppelin Museum Friedrichshafen - Schöne Neue Arbeitswelt
Galerie Alte Schule Adlershof - Holy. Energy. Masters. ars viva 2023
Haus der Kunst München - The Educational Web
Kunstverein Hamburg - The Accursed Share
Talbot Rice Gallery Edinburgh - 2022
BPA// Exhibition 2022
KW Institute for Contemporary Art - How is Life?
Toto Gallery・MA - DYOR
Kunsthalle Zürich - 58th Carnegie International
Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh - Beijing Art and Technology Biennale (BATB)
CAFA Art Museum (Beijing) - ars viva 2023
Goethe Institut Paris - Soft Machines
Hua International (Berlin) - Spoiler Alert
BPA// Raum - Unfished Camp@Pivô
Pivô, São Paulo, Brasil - Seeing Stones and Spaces Beyond the Valley
Biennale Warszawa 2022 - Seed Capital #1 curated by Fingerprints DAO
Art Dubai 2022 - 2021
Staub & Seide. Steppen- und Seidenstraße
Weltmuseum Wien - The Ethereal Aether. An Exhibition of Digital Art
The State Hermitage Museum - A Section of Now
Canadian Centre for Architecture - Unfinished Camp
The Shed NYC and HEK Basel - Proof of Stake
Kunstverein Hamburg - Proof of Art
Francisco Carolinum Linz - Natively Digital: A Curated NFT Sale
Sotheby's New York, Hong Kong and London - Natively Digital: A Curated NFT Sale
Sotheby's Decentraland - 2038, German pavilion
17th International Architecture Exhibition, La Biennale di Venezia - SynchroniCities
B-Part, Berlin - Klasse Denny Group Show 2021
the-engine.space - 2020
Mein Vater, meine Nachbarn, meine Freunde, und deren Freunde
haubrok foundation FAHRBEREITSCHAFT - Steppen & Seidenstraßen
MARKK Hamburg - Graduate Show 2020
HFBK Hamburg - 加密_流形 (crypto_manifold)
Chronus Art Center (新时线媒体艺术中心), Shanghai - Survival of the Fittest
Kunstpalais Erlangen - 2019
Goodbye Cruel World, It's Over
Weltkunstzimmer, Düsseldorf - 25th International Festival of Computer Arts (IFCA)
Maribor, Slovenia - Open Studios
Art School Alliance Studios, Hamburg - Sovereign Nature Exhibition
Kraftwerk, Berlin - Blocumenta
Artspace, Sydney - VIENNA BIENNALE
MAK – Österreichisches Museum für angewandte Kunst / Gegenwartskunst, Wien - Romantic Limits
Galerie der HFBK Hamburg - Digital Dilemma - The Architecture of Trust
Bureau Europa, Maastricht - ME YOU NOU – Créons un terrain d’entente
Biennale Internationale Design Saint-Etienne - Befriending Hyperobjects
NAVEL, Los Angeles - 2018
Forest. Enter. Exist.
MEWO Kunsthalle Memmingen - {PERFECT & PRICELESS} - VALUE SYSTEMS ON THE BLOCKCHAIN
Kate Vass Galerie, Zürich - Proof of Work
Schinkel Pavillon, Berlin - Crypto-economics: Infrastructures & Artefacts
Ars Electronica, Linz - Crypto-economics: Infrastructures & Artefacts
Festival Alpbach - Gray Area Festival
San Francisco - Exhibition #11: Dark Habitats Dark Ecology
Spektrum, Berlin - New World Order
Furtherfield Gallery, London - New World Order
Drugo More, Rijeka - New World Order
Aksioma, Ljubljana - 2017
PROOF-OF-BURN: Burning Money. Burning Value. Burning Trust.
Future of Demonstration Festival, Wien - Fiber Festival 2017
Amsterdam - 2016
State of DESIGN
designtransfer:, Berlin - Vorspiel
Transmediale 2016, Berlin
Group exhibitions
- 2025
Artist Talk with Paul Kolling and Janika Jähnisch
47m Leipzig - Sparta Lecture
Kunstakademie Düsseldorf - 2024
Münster Lecture — terra0
Kunstakademie Münster - terra0 im Gespräch mit Thomas Haemmerli
Digital Arts Zurich Festival - DA Z, Kunsthaus Zürich - Survival Finissage & Pre-Election Party — Artist Talks: Wie sieht die künstlerische Arbeit der Zukunft aus? Moderation: Nicolaus Schafhausen
Deichtorhallen - terra0: Autonomous Forests 2-day workshop
Deichtorhallen Hamburg - jour fixe
Akademie der Bildenden Künste München - Künstlergespräch mit Paul Kolling
Kunstverein München - 2022
Refractions: terra0 & Sohrab Mohebbi
Carnegie Museum of Art - An Introduction to Autonomous Ecological Agents
Biennale Warszawa 2022 - Artist talk with Paul Kolling and Maria-Katharina Lang about 'Staub & Seide. Steppen- und Seidenstraße'
Weltmuseum Wien - 2020
Artist talk
Class of Angela Bulloch, HFBK Hamburg - Break of Gauge presentation
Conditions of a Necessity at Kunsthalle Baden-Baden - Break of Gauge: Research trip presentation
Floating Projects, Hong Kong - 2018
NFTs and the blockchain collectible paradigm
CrCC at BlueYard, Berlin - Deodands, AI DAOS and Natural System Users
BigchainDB Meetup at BlueYard, Berlin - Natural resources take control
Pre-Work-Talk, IXDS, Berlin - Money: Matters of Life
Moneylab #5, State University New York, Buffalo NY - Extrapolate Nature – (Nonhuman) Governance for Ecosystems
Moneylab #5, State University New York, Buffalo NY - Art & Blockchain
Drugo more, Rijeka - Headless organisation and nonhuman governance
TRUST space, Berlin - 2017
The Autonomous Forest: How nature can govern
Impact Startup Fest, Den Haag - Diagrams of Friction #2: observing algorithms
super filme, Berlin - extrapolate everything - Design für eine post-humane Welt
Medien/Zukünfte, TU Braunschweig - Creating Speculative Scenario's
Apart festival K3 and Arkadi Zaides, Hamburg - Becoming Earth: Engineering Symbiotic Futures
Transmediale 2017, Berlin
Talks & workshops
- 2024
Paul Kolling: Nadir | Ausstellungsbesprechung von Katrin Bauer, Camera Austria, 01.06.2024 (magazine) - Eye in the Sky: Aerial politics with Henrietta Williams and Paul Kolling, koozArch, 01.04.2024 (web)
- Paul Kolling at Kunstverein München e.V. / Munich, Daily Lazy, 14.03.2024 (web)
- Paul Kolling at Kunstverein München, Contemporary Art Library, 07.03.2024 (web)
- Nadir, KUBAPARIS, 06.03.2024 (web)
- Was läuft in der Kunst?, Süddeutsche Zeitung, 05.03.2024 (magazine)
- Paul Kolling, Nadir: Die Vermessung der Welt von oben, artline>, 29.02.2024 (magazine)
- Paul Kolling “Nadir” at Kunstverein München, Mousse Magazine, 26.02.2024 (web)
- Paul Kolling's ‘Nadir’ Unlocks a Bird's Eye View, Frieze, 16.02.2024 (web)
- Im Zenit — Paul Kolling im Kunstverein München, gallerytalk.net, 02.02.2024 (web)
- 2023
The Work of Artists by Linda Rocco, ART Monthly, 01.09.2023 (magazine) - Simon Denny & terra0 in conversation, Outland Magazine, 23.02.2023 (web)
- A tree is one of the most important works in the Carnegie International, NEXT Pittsburgh, 12.01.2023 (web)
- Out on a limb: Carnegie International project seeks legal personhood for a tree, WESA NPR, 11.01.2023 (radio)
- 2022
terra0’s Self-Owning Forests, FRIEZE, 12.12.2022 (magazine) - Paul Kolling at 14a / Hamburg, Daily Lazy, 26.10.2022 (web)
- This tree owns itself—and is fighting for its own survival, Fast Company, 23.09.2022 (web)
- The Carnegie International takes on the era of US superpower, The Art Newspaper, 23.09.2022 (web)
- Paul Kolling: Strukturversagen, Arts of the Working Class, 20.09.2022 (magazine)
- Everything You Need to Know About NFTs, GQ Magazine, 25.05.2022 (web)
- Proof of What？三檔區塊鏈主題展覽在歐洲, CLABO, 19.05.2022 (web)
- Kunst-Auszeichnung des BDI: Ars-Viva-Preis 2023 verliehen, Monopol, 03.05.2022 (magazine)
- VCA Curatorial Picks – Week 25th April, 2022, VerticalCrypto Art, 25.04.2022 (web)
- Francesco Garutti speaks with Paul Kolling and Paul Seidler about the new notion of ownership in relation to nature, and especially the forest, Canadian Centre for Architecture, 06.04.2022 (web)
- Forest Governmentality and the Struggle for More-Than-Human Sovereignty by Daniel Jacobs & Brittany Utting, The Avery Review, 01.04.2022 (web)
- Art Dubai mit neuer Sektion für digitale Kunst, Tagesspiegel, 12.03.2022 (magazine)
- Insider look at Carnegie Museum of Art’s prestigious 58th Carnegie International, NEXT Pittsburgh, 10.03.2022 (web)
- What Are Nfts Anyway?, Right Click Safe, 18.02.2022 (web)
- 2021
Jahresgaben 2021 Kunstverein Hamburg: Nord, Ost, Süd und West, Kunstverein Hamburg, 03.12.2021 (web) - The Green Room Exhibition, V.O Curations London, 15.10.2021 (event)
- Bettina Steinbrügge on New Forms of Coexistence, The New Institute, 09.10.2021 (web)
- SCHLOSSMUSEUM LINZ PROOF OF ART – A short history of NFTs, from the beginning of digital art to the metaverse, Distanz Verlag, 01.09.2021 (book)
- Episode 28 - Two Degrees by Terra0, NFTs Are 4 Ever Podcast, Spotify, 21.06.2021 (radio)
- Plant(e)tecture: Towards a Multispecies Media Architecture Framework for amplifying Plant Agencies, QUT Design Lab, Queensland, 10.06.2021 (magazine)
- terra0, enabling the forest to become an autonomous economic agent, CLOT Magazine, 07.06.2021 (web)
- 気温上昇により自動焼却されるNFT「Two Degrees」、サザビーズにて出品 by 呉心怡, あたらしい経済 / neweconomy, 31.05.2021 (web)
- 苏富比拍卖NFT“Two Degrees”，将在全球气温升高2°C后自行销毁, 8BTC, 30.05.2021 (web)
- Ce NFT s’autodétruit si les températures globales augmentent de 2 ° C, BlockBlog, 30.05.2021 (web)
- This NFT Self-Destructs If Global Temperatures Rise 2°C, Ekin Genç, Decrypt, 29.05.2021 (web)
- Этот Nft Самоуничтожится, Если Глобальная Температура Поднимется На 2° C, block-chain24, 29.05.2021 (web)
- 从即将上拍苏富比的28件NFT艺术品中，我们看到了加密艺术的过去、现在与未来, Zhuanlan Zhihu, 26.05.2021 (web)
- 從即將上拍蘇富比的28件NFT藝術品中，我們看到了加密藝術的過去、現在與未來, BlockBeats, 26.05.2021 (web)
- 2038.xyz: terra0, A model for nature to regulate and govern itself, Google Arts & Culture, 25.05.2021 (web)
- Two Degrees (2021) by terra0 in Natively Digital: A Curated NFT Sale, Sotheby's, 20.05.2021 (web)
- Hinter Scheiben, Die Kunst ist da - wir dürfen sie aber nicht besuchen , Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung, 04.04.2021 (magazine)
- Paul Kolling, Break of Gauge, rundgang.io, 28.01.2021 (web)
- Zug und Trug: Über Paul Kollings Filminstallation Break of Gauge, Raphael Dillhof, Springering, Heft 4/2020, 14.01.2021 (magazine)
- 2020
Jahresgaben edition 'Clouds over WB190621 No. 1-21', Kunstverein Harburger Bahnhof, 15.12.2020 (web) - HFBK Graduate Show 2020: Künstlerische Abschlussarbeiten von Leyla Yenirce und Paul Kolling, HFBK Hamburg, 08.12.2020 (web)
- Decision Trees, Jason Rhys Parry, Real Life Magazine, 10.11.2020 (web)
- Goodbye Cruel World, It’s Over Erdlings Geschichten, Janine Blöß, Hörner/Antlfinger, Verlag der Kunsthochschule für Medien Köln, 01.11.2020 (book)
- Pressemitteilung: Stipendium zur Förderung des künstlerisch-wissenschaftlichen Nachwuchses , HFBK Hamburg, 21.09.2020 (web)
- Encouraging New Talent Award , HFBK Hamburg, 20.09.2020 (web)
- Paul Kolling at Kunstverein Harburger Bahnhof, Contemporary Art Daily, 17.07.2020 (web)
- Digitalisierte Reflexionen Zum Klimawandel, Roland Schöny, PARNASS Kunstmagazin, 16.07.2020 (web)
- Salvare la natura: la tecnologia aiuta?, Niccolò Lucarelli, Artribune, 14.07.2020 (web)
- Ein gerader Schnitt durch die Welt, Radek Krolczyk, taz am Wochenende, 11.07.2020 (magazine)
- terra0 workwear jacket edition , left.gallery, 01.07.2020 (web)
- Paul Kolling - Break of Gauge, art-in.de, 27.06.2020 (web)
- Agency in the Age of Decentralization James Bridle in conversation with Michaela Friedberg and Olaf Grawert, ARCH+ The Property Issue: Politics of Space and Data, 07.06.2020 (magazine)
- Survival of the fittest. Nature and high-tech in contemporary art, we make money not art, 16.03.2020 (web)
- Salvare la natura: la tecnologia aiuta?, Artribune, 11.03.2020 (web)
- "Survival of the Fittest" Ausstellung in Erlangen: Gespräch mit dem Künstler Paul Kolling, kulturLeben BR, 05.03.2020 (radio)
- The Datafication of Forests? — From the Wood Wide Web to the Internet of Trees, chapter by Jonathan Gray in Bruno Latour and Peter Weibel, 01.01.2020 (book)
- 2019
Rise of Blockchain Companies with Hidden Owners – A Horizon Scan of Emerging Global Biological Conservation Issues for 2020, Cell Press Review, 01.10.2019 (magazine) - Handlungsmacht im Zeitalter der Dezentralisierung, ARCH+ 236: Posthumane Architektur, 28.09.2019 (magazine)
- Terra0: Giving DAO agency to natural resource, P2P Accounting for Planetary Survival, P2P:Foundation, M. Bauwens, A. Pazaitis, 01.06.2019 (web)
- terra0 – Autonomy of Ecosystems, REALTY-V by T. Zolghadr, C. Roth, Space Time TV, 10.04.2019 (web)
- legislating architecture: architecting after politics’, A. Brandlhuber, C. Roth, aut. architektur und tirol, 14.03.2019 (event)
- An Essay on the German Forest: In the Open with terra0, En plein air – Ethnographies of the Digital’ by P. Karambeigi, A. Ostertag, T. Rossol, P. Schwarzer, L. Stolz, Spector Books, 01.01.2019 (book)
- Decentralised Autonomous Organisations nd the Corporate Form, Nathan Tse, 01.01.2019 (book)
- 2018
Proof of Work, Schinkel Pavillon, Berlin, esse.ca, 15.11.2018 (web) - Art and AI: Can AI ever be the Artist? by Devika Thapar, medium, 11.10.2018 (web)
- In der Kryptowelt, Philipp Hindahl, SCHIRN MAG, 07.10.2018 (web)
- Terraforming via the digital twin of everything’, Comrade Animal, The habitat beyond anthropocentrism - Parasite 2.0, 06.10.2018 (magazine)
- Ethereum’s Walled Garden: Flower Tokens and Terra0, BTCManager.com, 17.08.2018 (web)
- ‘Innovationstreiber Blockchain’ in ‘Bitcoin und Blockchain – Vom Scheitern einer Ideologie und dem Erfolg einer revolutionären Technik’ by P. Rosenberg, Springer-Verlag GmbH, 01.07.2018 (book)
- Digitalisierte Natur: Ein Wald, der sich selbst abholzt - und verkauft, Süddeutsche Zeitung, 18.06.2018 (magazine)
- What Blockchain Means for Contemporary Art, Michael Eby, Hyperallergic.com, 11.05.2018 (web)
- Jahrespublikation, Hochschule für Gestaltung und Kunst Basel, 01.05.2018 (book)
- Informality In Times Of Blockchain, Volume #52: The End of Informality, Volume Magazine, May, 01.05.2018 (magazine)
- Agenda Setter’, Communication Director, 15.03.2018 (magazine)
- Unlimited Editions, Real Life Magazine, February 26, 26.02.2018 (web)
- Blockchain. La prospettiva degli artisti, Artribune, 30.01.2018 (web)
- BitchCoin and terra0: Tokenization as an Art Form, MoneyLab Reader 2: Overcoming the Hype, 20.01.2018 (book)
- Decentralized Artificial Intelligence Is Coming: Here's What You Need To Know, Forbes, 11.01.2018 (web)
- 2017
Art and Finance Report 2017, Deloitte, 31.12.2017 (web) - Why Decentralized Artificial Intelligence Will Reinvent The Industry As We Know It, Forbes, 26.11.2017 (web)
- The Possibility Of A Forest: Unsound 2017, The Quietus, 30.10.2017 (web)
- To be Frank’ 3/2017, WIRED Germany (now GQ), 29.09.2017 (magazine)
- How Science Revolutionises Democracy Work and Nature Using Blockchain, re:pulica 17, 05.08.2017 (event)
- An Essay on the German Forest by Tabea Rossol & Pujan Karambeigi, translated by Pierre Schwarzer, warehouse.industries, 26.07.2017 (web)
- 2016
The Self-Owning Augmented Forest, Institute of Network Cultures, 29.09.2016 (web) - terra0: art project, self-owned forest, l’editie, 03.09.2016 (web)
Press & features
- 2022
terra0: Letting the world computer grow roots, branches and leaves (chapter), Radical Friends – Decentralised Autonomous Organisations and the Arts - 2021
WB190621 (ZHENGZHOU–HAMBURG) (chapter contribution), Cartographies of the Imagination - 'Violence of inexorable movement' in 'SPATIAL [RÆUMLICH]', GASTGARTEN magazine
- The development of terra0: Experiments with autonomous ecosystems, Weird Economies, Bahar Noorizadeh
- 'terra0' chapter contribution, 140 Artists’ Ideas for Planet Earth by Hans Ulrich Obrist, Kostas Stasinopoulos
- Two Degrees NFT: A conceptual and technical writeup of terra0’s contribution for Sotheby’s Nativey Digital: A Curated NFT Sale, self-published
- 'It's 2038', terra0 essay in '2038 — The New Serenity', German Pavillon at the 17th International Architecture Exhibition — La Biennale di Venezia, Sorry Press
- 2020
Unrealised project: LNA 2013 (video game), Catalogue 4.5 edited by Hans Ulrich Obrist - 2019
Photographs in ‘CONTACT, AVST Magazine - 2017
Mediating Matter. Eine Ökologie der Gestaltung, Geschichte und Theorie visueller Kulturen - 'terra0 – Can an Augmented Forest Own and Utilize Itself?’ chapter contribution, ‘Artists Re:thinking the Blockchain’ by Ruth Catlow, Marc Garrett, Sam Skinner and Nathan Jones, Liverpool University Press
- 2016
‘nothing human makes it out of the near future...’ terra0 Advertisement in ‘Narcissism’, Issue #5, Ecocore magazine - terra0 White Paper v1, self-published
