Solo Show at Galerie Holger John — Leonⁿ MonoSerieⁿ

Leonⁿ – MonoSerieⁿ
HUMAN | MACHINE | AI PAINTING

Action:
Paint your own unique artwork in 10 minutes with the AI‑driven robot.
For a small or large donation, you can take your finished piece home.

Art project & exhibition
3 – 13 October 2025, daily 11:00 – 19:00
Artist & robot will be present.

I trained for years for this.

On September 7, the diploma show at HfBK Dresden came down.
On the Day of German Unity — October 3 — the doors of Galerie Holger John opened.

Twenty‑six days to turn one diploma piece into a full gallery show.

The robot basically didn’t sleep. MonoSerie after MonoSerie, all motifs and formats made on the fly. Olympia was a pure sprint: a few days of sketching, three days of production, finished less than 24 hours before the vernissage. The “knickers” got framed by friends right in the gallery. The last piece went on the wall minutes before people walked in.

I wasn’t really sleeping at that point either.

Even the machines tapped out. On opening day, just as I wanted to engrave the nameplates, the YETI Dresden laser cutter finally died after endless 12‑hour runs. It had literally smoked its screen.

Holger had left for Congo for a cultural exchange with the ministry. He dropped his gallery keys into my hand. Handshake deal, full trust:
“Run the show.”

So Raphael and I opened a Holger‑John vernissage without Holger John. Usually, people come for him. This time, they came – and stayed for my live speech and MonoSerie demo.

Leonⁿ – MonoSerieⁿ x Freddy Langer

One of the luckiest coincidences of the whole show was that the photographer and artist Freddy Langer stopped by at the Galerie Holger John.

We got in a conversation, he’s a friendly, very curious guy. He became interested in a small skull piece. In the end, he left with both the small and the big one.

I traded the small one for a private deal.
He also wanted the big one, but he didn’t have the 500 € on him.
I said I’d gladly trade it for one of his works. His eyes lit up, Freddy went straight to his car, grabbed his photo gear – deal.

He got the big piece in exchange for a work of his: a set of photos of me wearing his famous mask. With that gesture, he placed me in a conceptual “room” with Andy Warhol by making me part of his ongoing series Artist Portraits – I couldn’t have been happier. On top of that, I got a photo with him and with the artist and gallerist Holger John.

I invited Holger and Freddy, and we spent the cash I’d just earned together at the Red Rooster on a shared meal.At some point Freddy realised he had overstayed and said, “Oh time flys, it’s a two‑hour drive back to Leipzig…” – and off he went.

He didn’t just leave with the work – he also gave it a massive push. Freddy posted the MonoSerie pieces on his own channel immediately after taking the photos and made the whole thing feel “real” in the wider art world.

All of this was made possible in the first place by the master orchestrator himself: Holger John.

Leonⁿ – MonoSerieⁿ x Holger John

Holger John (born 3 April 1960 in Schollene) is a German painter, graphic artist, event manager, and gallerist.

He was the first to create a replica of one of his own graphic works, a double‑lined graphic.

In his view, when comparing replica and original, his original is simply “besser” (“better”).

One of the craziest things that happened during the MonoSerie gallery was this:

Just on the Vernissage maybe around 8 PM, a young girl, maybe 10 years old, was curious about painting. So I handed her the MonoSerie system and let her go. She painted a skull variation in about 25 minutes.

When she was done, we decided to auction it to the people still in the gallery.

Bids went up to 70 €.
By design, the deal was a 50/50 split between me (the system owner) and my “franchisee” (the painter).

So:
– 35 € for her
– 35 € for me
– and the painting goes to the highest bidder.

The highest bidder was my mother.

And then she did something I didn’t expect:
She gifted the painting back to the girl.

So now this 10‑year‑old is standing there, a bit stunned, holding:

35 € cash
and a 100 × 70 original MonoSerie she created less than half an hour ago.

For her, it was just fun.
For me, it was the most “effort collapse + value creation” lesson I could possibly give a kid:

25 minutes of curiosity → real money → real asset → real shift in how work and value feel.

I hope that moment rewired something in her brain about what’s possible when you create instead of just consume.

We made this exhibition possible together. Everyone supported me, and I couldn’t be happier that I was able to host this event for all of us. It was a great night, and I appreciate all your efforts.

This photo shows my family, friends, and mentors in one frame – the people who made this vernissage possible and helped us be ready in time to open the doors.

Many hours of pitch training and refining the method – the pitch worked, the demo was so‑so, but it was fun.

It was a huge joy, and I appreciate everyone who came to the vernissage of my first exhibition in a gallery setting ever.

On the left are my YETI fellows who came by – curious, energetic young people I can learn a lot from.

On the right is my mentor, Hans Hochkeppel. He was the one who first put the robot in my hands, bought the very first MonoSerie ever available, and picked up more works at the vernissage. He’s enabled me to do so many things. I deeply appreciate his presence in my life and his voice as someone I trust.