London Art | Now open at V&A South Kensington
Long before AI art, there was Vera Molnar. A new display at V&A South Kensington, Degrees of Disruption: Vera Molnar and Generative Art, celebrates one of the first artists ever to experiment with computers. Here are five reasons to visit.
1. A pioneer of computer art
Molnar is now widely recognised as an influential figure in the history of generative art, where an artist sets up a system of rules and lets the artwork emerge. Crucially, she never handed over complete control to the machine. She set the parameters and used the computer as a tool guided by her own choices, which feels very relevant to today’s debates about AI and creativity.
2. Her “imaginary machine”
Fascinatingly, Molnar was creating algorithmic art years before she had access to a computer. In 1959 she developed her Machine Imaginaire, a rule-based method she carried out by hand, rearranging simple elements according to sequences of instructions. The display also includes her early abstract paintings from the 1940s and 1950s, influenced by Sonia Delaunay and Piet Mondrian.
3. Order, disorder and surprise
Once she got a real computer in 1968, Molnar became fascinated by the tension between order and randomness, deliberately adding small “interruptions” to her designs. Plotter drawings like Interruptions (1969) and (Dis)Order (1974) show this beautifully. A particularly moving series, My Mother’s Letters (1988), is based on her mother’s handwriting, which gradually becomes illegible before the letters stop.
4. A never-before-seen self-portrait
Among more than 50 works is a self-portrait never displayed before, Autoportrait à la Sainte-Victoire (2004), a set of six collages referencing the mountain famously painted by Cézanne. Molnar also created homages to Monet, Paul Klee and Sonia Delaunay.
5. Her influence on artists today
The final section puts Molnar in dialogue with eight contemporary generative artists, including Harm van den Dorpel, Matt DesLauriers and the collective Entangled Others, whose Sediment Nodes uses neural networks and generative AI. It’s a thought-provoking look at authorship and creativity, and a great add-on to a V&A visit.
Visit
Degrees of Disruption: Vera Molnar and Generative Art
Rooms 88A and 90, V&A South Kensington, Cromwell Road, London SW7 2RL
Opened 16 October 2026
Nearest station: South Kensington