Christoph Niemann
C/O Berlin präsentiert mit Christoph Niemann die zehnte Artistic Intervention im Café C/O Berlin x Bark Berlin. The installation will be on view at Amerika Haus from Sep 26, 2025, through Sep 2, 2026.
To celebrate the twenty-fifth birthday of C/O Berlin, internationally acclaimed illustrator Christoph Niemann has transformed C/O Berlin’s café into an immersive work of art that pays homage to early photography and the art of seeing. Niemann’s Artistic Intervention was inspired by the first known photographic still life, a helio- graph by Joseph Nicéphore Niépce from 1822 that depicts a table set for dinner.
In Niemann’s version, Premier Plat, the set table becomes a banquet table in a detailed copy that reinterprets the original as a large-format wall hanging. In collaboration with Veronika Aumann, professor of textile design at the Staatliche Akademie der Bildenden Künste in Stuttgart, the motif is not printed but woven in a sophisticated technique that translates the principle of making photographic images into cloth: light and dark areas are created by the concentration and rhythm of black and white threads, which is comparable with analog photographic processes and halftone printing.
The result is both visually and haptically impressive: many of the threads hang from the picture, emphasizing certain motifs—including a soup bowl—and add three- dimensional depth to the work. To complement the wall hanging, four separate canvas elements are suspended in front of it. In addition, two other works titled Revue Du Gras and Vue De C/O reinterpret Niépce’s iconic View from the Studio— visualized for C/O Berlin in Amerika Haus.
Niemann digitally and physically interweaves the past and the present to create a complex work of art that celebrates the visual history of culture—and transforms the Café C/O Berlin x Bark Berlin into a temporary installation.
Christoph Niemann (b. 1970) is an artist, writer, and animator. His works combine drawing, design, technology, and conceptual art in a playfully intelligent way. His illustrations are frequently featured on the covers of The New Yorker and The New York Times Magazine. Niemann’s oeuvre has been shown in numerous museum retrospectives. He has drawn live from the Venice Biennale, the Olympics in London, and the New York City Marathon. His clients include Hermès, Google, LAMY, and the Museum of Modern Art in New York. Niemann is a member of the Alliance Graphique Internationale. In 2010 he was inducted into the Art Directors Club Hall of Fame in New York. Niemann has created numerous site-specific im- mersive installations in places such as the Horst-Janssen-Museum Oldenburg, the Berliner Ensemble, and the Wannsee subway station in Berlin. He has written seve- ral books, including Sunday Sketching, Away, and Idea Diary. Draw, his most recent book, encourages the creativity of children and adults through drawing.