MANHATTAN — The hottest concert in town isn't at Madison Square Garden or Terminal 5 — it's at the Museum of Modern Art.
The Midtown institution is presenting the first live retrospective of the electronic music pioneers Kraftwerk this coming April, the museum announced Wednesday.
For eight consecutive nights, from April 10 to 17, the band will perform eight albums from the group's four-decade career, including 3D images and high-tech set design.
Kraftwerk will also play original compositions from its catalogue to spotlight how the band has influenced popular culture.
The show's $25 tickets go on sale Feb. 22 at noon and will only be available at MoMA's website.
"Kraftwerk is an influential force not only in music, but also in visual culture," Klaus Biesenbach, chief curator-at-large for MoMA and director of MoMA PS1, said in a statement.
"Through their experimentation with how images and sound are shaped by the latest recording and visualization tools, they have continuously anticipated the impact of technology on everyday life," added Biesenbach, who organized the show with Eliza Ryan, curatorial assistant at MoMA PS1.
"[They] have captured the human condition in an era of rapidly changing mobility and telecommunication."
Ralf Hütter and Florian Schneider launched the "Kraftwerk project" in Düsseldorf, Germany, in 1970, setting up the pioneering Kling Klang studio, where all of the group's albums were conceived and composed. They became international stars for their "electro sound paintings" by the mid-'70s.
They use robots in live performances and draw on noise elements from the world of transit and industry in their repetitive mechanical melodies, museum officials said. The group has crossed over into the art world before, performing at the Venice Biennale in 2005 and more recently at the museum Lenbachhaus Kunstbau in Munich.
Unlike other museum shows — where Kraftwerk videos, visuals or "robots" were presented separately from concerts — the MoMA show is the first to present the complex layers of music, sound, videos, sets and performance as one complete work, museum officials said.
"All of the components — melodic music and ambient sound, elaborate stage sets, live performance and performance by robots, their trademark videos and logo-like still imagery, all conceived and realized by the artists themselves — coalesce as one work of art," Biesenbach said.
Space is limited for the shows, set to be held in in the museum's Donald B. and Catherine C. Marron Atrium. There will be a two-ticket limit, and tickets will be distributed exclusively via will call, with photo ID required.
