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Stefan
Müller. Hang zur Neigung
Sat. 27.
03. – 24. 05. 2010
Press
conference: Thu. 25. 03. 2010, 11 pm
Opening:
Fri. 26. 03. 2009, 19 pm
Tuesday
to Sunday 11-18 h
Thursday 11-19 h
Stefan
Müller
I’m against it, 2000
Acrylic on
nettle
80 x 100 cm / 31.5 x 39.4’’
Photo: Ludger
Paffrath, Berlin
Central to Stefan Müller’s (b. 1973)
approach to his art are the engagement with painting and the
question of what its formal significance may yet be for the
present, after the problems raised by Conceptual Art and
Minimal Art. Employing a minimalist approach, Müller explores
the picture, often considering it finished at the earliest
possible moment. Framing and stretching the canvas and leaving
minimal traces that seem to be the products of accident are
often enough to form a complete picture.
Müller’s painting is distinguished by a reduced choice
of materials, motifs, and colors. He paints on untreated
canvas, cotton fabric, or used fabrics such as bed sheets,
which he exposes to accidental modification before and during
the act of painting. Beer stains, ashes, dust, coffee, or
blood often replace the conventional varnish. His palette of
materials ranges from acrylic, transparent lacquers, oil, and
silicone to markers, pencils, and crayons. He also integrates
banal elements such as dirt, tissue paper, confetti, and
glitter into his works.
Stefan
Müller
Jaki Liebezeit, 2001
Acrylic on
canvas
135 x 100 cm / 53,1 x 39.4’’
Photo: Simon Vogel,
Cologne
In
the pictures from the early 2000s, Stefan Müller is still
palpably torn by the conflict between representational and
abstract painting. Giraffes rambling across the canvas or a
drum kit dissolve into abstract patterns of color. Yet Müller
soon develops a formal vocabulary comprising circles, spheres,
lines, and rectangular fields that pervade his work to this
day. Curls become the I, circles represent the thoughts
incessantly spinning in the artist’s head. Titles such as
Total total Confusion, Aua, aua, armes
Universum, Zu lange in die Sonne geschaut, and
Empire of Dirt add another layer of meaning to these
paintings.
Stefan
Müller
Ohne Titel, 2005
Various fabrics, sewn
210 x
140 cm / 82.7 x 55.1"
Photo: Wolfgang Günzel,
Offenbach
The
protagonists of Minimal Art confidently resisted the
traditional expressive means of painting and sculpture.
Trademarks of their three-dimensional works include an
extremely reduced formal language, modern industrial materials
such as plywood, aluminium, and fluorescent tubes, and the
removal of anything suggesting the artist’s individual hand.
The products of American Color Field painting are defined
exclusively by visual illusionism, negating the traditional
representational function of painting. Palermo’s fabric
paintings likewise categorically eliminate the personal
artistic signature. His pictures made of dyed panels of
fabric, having lost all painted materiality, are radically
reduced to the impression of color.
Stefan
Müller
Enzian, 2006
Acrylic, lacquer and
shellac on nettle
150 x 150 cm / 59.1 x 59.1"
Photo:
Ludger Paffrath, Berlin
If
Müller begins in the mid-2000s to develop a form of painting
without painting by transforming fabrics of various
composition, size, and color into works of art in a purely
additive process, this must certainly be considered a
reference to Minimal Art. Mistakes and ruptures often mark
Müller’s fabric paintings, implying the Romantic notion of
failure. The chronological arrangement of his pictures at the
Staatliche Kunsthalle Baden-Baden illustrates how Müller
constantly rethinks and reinvents painting. Stefan Müller’s
roots are in painting, which he questions with a variety of
formal instruments and methods; in his most recent paintings,
he has found his own striking and distinctive visual
language.
Stefan
Müller
Blossoms like Blisters – Boredom’s my
Sister, 2009
Fabric, colored, acrylic, marker
165 x
135 cm / 65 x 53.1’’
Photo: Wolfgang Günzel,
Offenbach
The
exhibition "Stefan Müller. Hang zur Neigung"
shows about 40 paintings from 2000 until 2010.
The
catalogue with essays by Thomas Bayrle, Hans-Jürgen Hafner,
Karola Kraus and Julia Wirxel, is published by Distanz Verlag,
Berlin, 160 p., Hardcover, German/English, € 29.90; in
bookshop € 39.90; ISBN 978-3-89955-407-6
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