It’s a Digital World. Margaret Eicher in Concersation with Wolfgang Ullrich

Magnificent tapestries once told stories of wealth and power at the courts of the nobility. Artist Margret Eicher uses the historical technique of tapestry to confront the visual worlds of the digital present. On May 28, 2025, in conversation with cultural scientist Wolfgang Ullrich, she will present her newly published book Margret Eicher. It's A Digital World, which for the first time offers an overview of her work from the 1980s to the present day.

Over the past 25 years, Margret Eicher has created a unique oeuvre - from the copy collages on paper of the 1980s to the media tapestries she has been creating since the 2000s, whose motifs are designed on the computer and woven in an industrial Jacquard process in Flanders. The artist uses the medium of tapestry as a critical tool for deconstructing contemporary visual worlds. While tapestries represented the power of the nobility in the past, Eicher's works feature the superstars of the digital era - but also those who are among the powerless in society. She reflects on the power of images, which are omnipresent in today's digital world, and examines how they influence our perception and behavior. However, this process is not limited to mere criticism. Wolfgang Ullrich, the book's editor, emphasizes the complex understanding of power in Margret Eicher's work: “She does not condemn the pursuit of power across the board. After all, mere criticism or destruction of existing structures is not enough to change power relations. With her work, Eicher shows that new forms of mythification must be created and new actors must emerge who can serve as role models for those who have had no or too little visibility and power up to now.

Margret Eicher. It's A Digital World, edited by Wolfgang Ullrich, has 2200 pages and was published by Hatje Cantz in March 2025.