UNESCO World Heritage Völklinger Hütte
X-RAY – The Power of Roentgen Vision
09.11.2025 – 16.08.2026

Presented at the UNESCO World Heritage site Völklinger Hütte, the exhibition X-RAY — The Power of the Roentgen Vision unfolds as the first large-scale project dedicated to the cultural, scientific, and artistic implications of X-ray technology.

Spanning a wide spectrum—from early radiographic experiments to contemporary imaging technologies and even space research—the exhibition reveals how X-rays have reshaped the ways we perceive bodies, matter, and knowledge across disciplines.
Rather than treating radiology as a purely medical tool, the exhibition positions the X-ray as a cultural instrument of seeing—one that exposes hidden structures while simultaneously raising questions about power, surveillance, and interpretation.

Installed within the vast industrial architecture of the former steelworks, the exhibition creates an immersive parcours in which art, historical artifacts, and scientific narratives intersect, demonstrating how deeply imaging technologies have permeated modern culture and collective imagination.

Andreas Greiner — Monument for the 308

Within this broader discourse, the work of Andreas Greiner offers one of the exhibition’s most striking reflections on the politics of visibility in the age of technological mediation.

Greiner’s Monument for the 308 rises more than seven meters high, resembling a monumental skeletal relic somewhere between fossil and industrial artifact. The sculpture is based on CT scans of a broiler chicken from the breeding line “Ross 308,” a species engineered for maximum meat production.

Using radiographic data as its point of departure, the artist translated the scanned body into a 3D-printed skeleton at a scale of 20:1, making visible the physical deformations produced by industrial breeding—shortened wings and heavily reinforced leg bones designed to carry excessive body mass.

The animal, typically raised to slaughter weight within approximately thirty days, becomes in Greiner’s work both specimen and memorial.
By transforming raw medical imaging data into a monumental sculptural presence, the piece shifts the X-ray from a diagnostic instrument into an ethical lens—revealing how systems of efficiency, consumption, and technological optimization inscribe themselves directly into living bodies.

Positioned within the historical context of the Völklinger Hütte—once a site of industrial production—the work resonates as a contemporary monument to the entanglement of biology, technology, and economy in the Anthropocene.

Weltkulturerbe Völklinger Hütte
X-RAY – Die Macht des Röntgenblicks
09.11.2025 – 16.08.2026

Artists and scientists featured in the exhibition:

JARBAS AGNELLI (1963, BR) RENATE BERTLMANN (1943, AT) CRIS BIERRENBACH (1964, BR) CHRISTOPH BRECH (1964, DE) ARNAUD BRESSON (1992, FR) REYNOLD BROWN (1917-1991, US) CLAUDE CAHUN (1894-1954, FR) JOHN CARPENTER (1948, US) JAUME COLLET-SERRA (1974, ESP) ROGER CORMAN (1926-2024, US) MARIE CURIE (1867-1934, PL) WIM DELVOYE (1965, BE) THOMAS DEMAND (1964, DE) MAXIM DONDYUK (1983, UKR) MATT DUPUIS (1980, CA) JOSEF MARIA EDER & EDUARD VALENTA (1855-1944/1857-1937, AU) ROSALIND FRANKLIN (1920-1958, UK) JEAN PAUL GAULTIER (1952, FR) ISA GENZKEN (1948, DE) HANS W. GEISSENDÖRFER (1941, DE) ANDREAS GREINER (1979, DE) BARBARA HAMMER (1948-2019, US) JENS HARDER (1970, DE) RAOUL HAUSMANN (1886-1971, AU) JOHN HEARTFIELD (1891-1968, DE) IRIS VAN HERPEN (1984, NL) VOLUSPA JARPA (1971, CL) FRITZ KAHN (1888-1968, DE) FRIDA KAHLO (1907-1954, MEX) WILLIAM KENTRIDGE (1955, ZA) JÜRGEN KLAUKE (1943, DE) SHAHRAM KHOSRAVI (1966, IRN) HANS KUPELWIESER (1948, AU) MAX VON LAUE (1879-1960, DE) LYNN HERSHMAN LEESON (1941, US) ROSIE LEVENTON (1946, UK) DANICA LUNDY (1991, CA) THOMAS MANN (1875-1955, DE) RÉMY MARKOWITSCH (1957, CH) ALIX MARIE (1989, FR) NOELLE MASON (1977, US) ANA MENDIETA (1948-1985, CU) JOHN MACINTYRE (1857-1928, UK) LUDWIG MIES VAN DER ROHE (1886-1969, DE) MARILYN MONROE (1926-1962, US) EDVARD MUNCH (1863-1944, NO) MERET OPPENHEIM (1913-1985, DE) SIR EDUARDO PAOLOZZI (1924-2005, SCO/UK) WALID RAAD (1967, LBN) CHRISTA REINIG (1926-2008, DE) ARIE VAN’T RIET (1947, NL) MARTIN RIKLI (1898-1969, CH) MARIJA TERESÉ ROZANSKAITE (1933-2007, LT) WILHELM CONRAD RÖNTGEN (1845-1923, DE) ARABO SARGSYAN (1990, ARM) KATHARINA SIEVERDING (1941, CZ) GEORG ALBERT SMITH (1864-1959, UK) SUMAYYA VALLY (1990, ZA) NICK VEASEY (1962, UK) PAUL VERHOEVEN (1938, NL) MICHAEL VENUS (1971, DE) ZIQUAN WANG (1993, CN) WILLIAM WEGMAN (1943, US) HORST WIDMANN (1938, AT) LU YANG (1984, CN) ADAM ZYGLIS (1982, US)

Curated by Dr. Ralf Beil

https://voelklinger-huette.org/x-ray-die-macht-des-roentgenblicks/809