Sylvia Roubaud (German, b. 1941) serigraph, untitled, 1972
70 × 70 cm
edition of 250
Collection of Bre Pettis
PION.2018.010
Description
One of the MBB Computer Graphics serigraphs — the 1971–72 project in which the aerospace company Messerschmitt-Bölkow-Blohm let a group from its Ottobrunn computing department make art on company iron: engineers Frank Böttger, Aron Warszawski, and Rolf Wölk, and painter Sylvia Roubaud working with programmer Gerold Weiss, initiated by Winfried Fischer. Programs in FORTRAN IV ran on an IBM 360 Model 50 and were drawn by the Kongsberg Kingmatic — at 2 × 6 meters the largest computerized drawing machine of its time in Europe — then editioned as serigraphs. The prints were published in Johann Willsberger's Computer Graphics (1972, published by MBB itself) and intended as a contribution to the cultural program of the 1972 Munich Olympics; the group showed at Tendencies 5 in Zagreb in 1973 and dissolved when the project ended. This sheet carries Sylvia Roubaud's motif: the group's only professional artist, she supplied the concept and hand-drawn sketches, Gerold Weiss translated them into FORTRAN IV, and she often intervened at the plotter while the drawing ran. Acquired from the Ragnar Digital Art Collection.
Sources: https://www.heikewerner.com/exhibits/computer-art-1972 · https://www.mudam.com/sylvia-roubaud
The image on file for this sheet is a dealer's framed mockup on a white brick wall — the same template used for PION.2026.094 — not a photograph of the work itself. It needs to be photographed in the collection, and identifying which of the three Roubaud/Weiss subjects it is should be done from the sheet in hand.