The World’s First Computer Art Exhibition: Georg Nees: Computergrafik, Studiengalerie der TH Stuttgart

Opening 4 February and running from the 5th to the 19th, Computergrafik was the first of the three 1965 computer art exhibitions globally. Invited by Max Bense to show the graphical work Georg Nees had been working on, Computergrafik was held in the Studiengalerie of the Technische Hochschule Stuttgart. Nees was the only artist on display. The February exhibit was the first gallery exhibition of graphic works created by a digital computer, though a one-day showing of computer-generated images programmed by Joan Shogren at San Jose State College on 6 May 1963 preceded it. It opened just months before the Howard Wise show in New York (April). It would go on to greatly influence another exhibition several months later in November of the same year with Frieder Nake. The reaction from the general public and from the artistic community upon seeing the first computer art was negative and bordered on hostile.