Burial of the White Man is a bildungsroman about the friendship between artist Erik Niedling and writer Ingo Niermann. While in their thirties, they begin collaborating on a series of projects of ever-increasing ambition and scope: a tomb for all humans, a dissident replica of the U.S. Army, a German-Mozambican liberation movement… Each failure is answered with an even more outrageous endeavor.

The Future of Art: A Diary is the sequel to The Future of Art: A Manual (2011), in which Niedling joined Niermann on his search for a new, epic artwork. The book is published on the occasion of the exhibition “18.10.1973–29.02.2012” at the Neues Museum Weimar.

In 1831 Honoré de Balzac wrote a short story, “The Unknown Masterpiece,” in which he invented the abstract painting. Almost 200 years later, writer Ingo Niermann tries to follow in his footsteps to imagine a new epoch-making artwork. Together with the artist Erik Niedling he starts searching for the future of art and, seeking advice, meets key figures of the art world.