Kraupa-Tuskany Zeidler is pleased to announce Rules Based Order, Simon Denny’s second exhibition with the gallery.
Denny presents new paintings and sculpture, continuing his research into the histories of Italian Futurism and their resonance with the proliferation of images from the burgeoning Defense Tech sector in Munich, Germany and the USA.
For his paintings Denny uses custom software to manipulate brushes and paint with adapted CNC, plotting machines, and altered ink jet printers, creating rich layered surfaces that combine mechanical gestures with jagged-edged algorithmic relics. Industry images fuse with Futurist motifs into AI-assisted compositions. Bringing together motifs from top German defence tech firms like Helsing and Quantum Systems, aligning them with USA counterparts like Anduril and the venture capital firm a16z, Denny’s fake Futurist paintings pull together a vision of a conflicted Europe questioning allegiances that have lasted since the mid 20th Century. The paintings evoke feelings of rupture, violence and change, but also investment, economic upside and opportunity.
Frequently cited by influential political thinkers like Joseph Nye, the term ‘Rules Based Order’ has been important since the 1950s for describing a seeming near-hegemony on liberal democratic international alliances between the USA and Western Europe. In 2025, Christoph Heusgen, the former Chair of the Munich Security Conference was brought to tears in his evocation of the term, rebutting Vice President JD Vance’s seeming repudiation of the notion of that “order” in his MSC address. In a moment where AI is rapidly embedding itself into most parts of life, another kind of “rules-based” order is replacing the Liberal consensus; code-based rules of executable protocols. Denny’s paintings bring this tension to the fore, using AI protocols to reflect on and image this systemic shift.
Centered in the exhibition space a robotic body plays witness to the machine paintings. A hacked inflatable clothes ironing machine wears an Anduril Industries merchandise Hawaiian shirt. Interspersed with flower motifs, line-art depicting AI drones and other Anduril unmanned weapons systems adorn this sought-after piece of company fan-wear. The robotic bust heaves with an uncanny breath-like chest movement – a technological reliquary echoing the bellicose tones from across the Atlantic.
Rules Based Order forms part of a broader research arc for Denny. He has been commissioned to create a key logo motif for the 19th edition of Belgium’s renowned Computers, Privacy and Data Protection (CPDP) conference, drawing on the paintings from the Munich exhibition. His extensive article Epic Fury. On the Dark Art of Defense Tech, published in the May 2026 issue of Artforum, explores the exhibition’s themes with greater depth and context. Denny is also included in Strange Rules: Protocol Art, a group exhibition curated by Hans Ulrich Obrist, Mat Dryhurst, and Holly Herndon examining rule-based art making, presented at Berggruen Arts and Culture’s Palazzo Diedo in conjunction with the Venice Biennale, where further works from this series are on view.
