Manfred Mohr is considered a pioneer of digital art. After discovering Prof. Max Bense's information aesthetics in the early 1960's, Mohr's artistic thinking was radically changed. Within a few years, his art transformed from abstract expressionism to computer generated algorithmic geometry. Encouraged by the computer music composer Pierre Barbaud whom he met in 1967, Mohr programmed his first computer drawings in 1969.
Some of the collections in which he is represented: Centre Pompidou, Paris; ZKM | Center for Art and Media, Karlsruhe; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Joseph Albers Museum, Bottrop; Mary and Leigh Block Museum of Art, Chicago; Victoria and Albert Museum, London; Ludwig Museum, Cologne; Wilhelm-Hack-Museum, Ludwigshafen; Kunstmuseum Stuttgart, Stuttgart; Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam; Museum im Kulturspeicher, Würzburg; Kunsthalle Bremen, Bremen; Musée d'Art Moderne et Contemporain, Strasbourg; Daimler Art Collection Berlin / Stuttgart; Musée d'Art Contemporain, Montreal; The Tel Aviv Museum of Art, Tel Aviv; Espace D'Art Concret (EAC), Mouans- Sartoux; Museum für Angewandte Kunst, Cologne; Borusan Art Collection, Istanbul; McCrory Collection, New York; Esther Grether Collection, Basel; Estrellita B. Brodsky Collection, New York; Thoma Art Foundation, Chicago; Fondation Guy & Myriam Ullens, Geneva.
Mohr has had many one-person shows / retrospectives in museums and galleries like: ARC - Musée d'Art Moderne de la ville de Paris, Paris 1971; Joseph Albers Museum, Bottrop 1998; Wilhelm-Hack-Museum, Ludwigshafen 1987, 2002; Museum for Concrete Art, Ingolstadt 2001; Kunsthalle Bremen, Bremen 2007; Museum im Kulturspeicher, Würzburg 2005; Grazyna Kulczyk Foundation, Poznan 2007; ZKM - Media Museum, Karlsruhe 2013; Featured Artist at Art Basel, Basel 2013; Center for the Arts, Virginia Tech 2014; Simons Center Gallery, Stony Brook 2015; Kunstverein, Pforzheim 1988, 2008; Museum Pforzheim Gallery, Pforzheim 1998, 2017.
He took part in innumerable group shows for example at: MoMA - Museum of Modern Art, New York 1980; MoMA-PS1, New York 2008; Centre Pompidou, Paris 1978, 1992, 2018; ZKM | Center for Art and Media, Karlsruhe 2005, 2008, 2010, 2018, 2019; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York 2019; Grand Palais, Paris 2018; Hamburger Bahnhof, Berlin 2018; LACMA | Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles Calif. 2023; Prague City Gallery (G HMP), Prague 2018; Victoria and Albert Museum (V & A), London 2009, 2018; Whitechapel Gallery, London 2016; CCCB, Barcelona 2016; Kunstmuseum Stuttgart, Stuttgart 2005, 2009, 2011, 2012, 2015, 2016, 2017; Kunstmuseum Bremen, Bremen 2007, 2017, 2018; Vasarely Museum, Budapest, 2007, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2017, 2018; Espace D'Art Concret (EAC), Mouans- Sartoux 1994, 1995, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2002, 2004, 2009, 2012, 2018; Museum Ritter, Waldenbuch 2005, 2006, 2008, 2013; Centro Cultural de la Villa, Madrid 1989; MoCA, Los Angeles 1975; National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo 1984; Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco 1973, 1977, 1980; MACM - Musée d'Art Contemporain, Montreal 1974, 1985, 2013; Fundacion Banco Santander, Madrid 2014; Muzeum Sztuki, Lodz 1981, 2011; Neue Nationalgalerie, Berlin, 1999; New Tendencies 5, Zagreb 1973; Leo Castelli Gallery, New York 1978; Galerie Paul Facchetti, Paris 1965 und Zürich 1970.
Among the awards he received are: elected to the SIGGRAPH Academy, 2018; ACM SIGGRAPH Distinguished Artist Award for Lifetime Achievement in Digital Art, 2013; [ddaa] d.velop Digital Art Award, Berlin 2006; Artist Fellowship, New York Foundation of the Arts, New York 1997; Golden Nica from Ars Electronica, Linz 1990; Camille Graesser-Preis, Zürich 1990.