Claudia & Julia Müller
12 Jan - 16 Feb 2008
CLAUDIA & JULIA MÜLLER
"Das Dilemma des Sichtbaren"
Opening: Friday, January 11th, 6pm – 8pm
Exhibition period: January 12th – February 16th 2008
Galerie Peter Kilchmann is pleased to announce the fourth solo exhibition of Swiss artists Claudia & Julia Müller. They will show a complex installation as well as new objects, drawings and collages.
Claudia & Julia Müller’s wall paintings, installations and paper and video works deal with cultural forms of representation, mainly in the context of everyday life, popular culture and history. The exhibited works in the broadest sense pick out the phenomenon of the puzzle picture (Vexierbild) and the perception process itself as a central theme. A large wall painting is the focus of the exhibition. It whisks us away into a dreary and anthropomorphically painted landscape. Human sense organs such as ears and eyes can be discovered within the brush. With the representation of the forest as a setting, the artists do not only quote an inexhaustible motif from the history of art, but also emphasize its symbolism, as well as ambivalent meanings, narrations and emotional associations. A closer look at the ostensively and correctly constructed scenery turns out to be an illusionary space. At the out bounding verges of the forest landscape, two metal objects, composed in a minimal style, are visible on the left and on the right hand side. They form an abstract counterpoint with the figurative mode of representation.
To complement their installation, the artists have mainly created watercolour, pencil drawings, and collages, which contain photography cut-outs and snippets from magazines. The drawings of the exhibition point up their serial way of working on one hand and examine the puzzle picture as a visual phenomenon on the other hand. In one of the pencil drawings, a rocky mountain landscape takes up the entire space on the paper. A man’s wrinkly face is visible on the rock and other faces can be made out between the crevices. This piece of art shows us how we seem to be able to identify faces wherever we look. Based on congenital processes of perception and learning processes, we constantly complement whatever is exposed to our eyes. The same applies to the recognition of faces.
Motifs of masks, fancy dresses and role-plays are recurring themes within the works of Claudia & Julia Müller. The artists constantly invent new forms and interpret them in a humorous and playful way. Two paper masks hanging on the wall are new objects that consist of a white silhouette and a black one on top of it. Their shapes remind one of a mixture of popular culture and the so-called Wired Folk Art. The masks are another example for the interpretation of the puzzled picture: The observer dithers between ornament and mask, black and white, figuration and abstraction.
Claudia (*1964) & Julia (*1965) Müller live and work in Basel. Since the middle of the nineties, they have exhibited their works throughout Europe. In 2008, they will present a solo exhibition at the Kunstverein Bonn. For the next year an artist book is in planning, which will appear in co-operation with Christoph Keller at JRP/Ringier.
The artists will be present at the opening. For further questions regarding the press materials, please contact Claudia Friedli (c.friedli@peterkilchmann.com).
A parallel exhibition in which the new works of Scottish artist Duncan Marquiss will be shown for the first time, will also take place.
"Das Dilemma des Sichtbaren"
Opening: Friday, January 11th, 6pm – 8pm
Exhibition period: January 12th – February 16th 2008
Galerie Peter Kilchmann is pleased to announce the fourth solo exhibition of Swiss artists Claudia & Julia Müller. They will show a complex installation as well as new objects, drawings and collages.
Claudia & Julia Müller’s wall paintings, installations and paper and video works deal with cultural forms of representation, mainly in the context of everyday life, popular culture and history. The exhibited works in the broadest sense pick out the phenomenon of the puzzle picture (Vexierbild) and the perception process itself as a central theme. A large wall painting is the focus of the exhibition. It whisks us away into a dreary and anthropomorphically painted landscape. Human sense organs such as ears and eyes can be discovered within the brush. With the representation of the forest as a setting, the artists do not only quote an inexhaustible motif from the history of art, but also emphasize its symbolism, as well as ambivalent meanings, narrations and emotional associations. A closer look at the ostensively and correctly constructed scenery turns out to be an illusionary space. At the out bounding verges of the forest landscape, two metal objects, composed in a minimal style, are visible on the left and on the right hand side. They form an abstract counterpoint with the figurative mode of representation.
To complement their installation, the artists have mainly created watercolour, pencil drawings, and collages, which contain photography cut-outs and snippets from magazines. The drawings of the exhibition point up their serial way of working on one hand and examine the puzzle picture as a visual phenomenon on the other hand. In one of the pencil drawings, a rocky mountain landscape takes up the entire space on the paper. A man’s wrinkly face is visible on the rock and other faces can be made out between the crevices. This piece of art shows us how we seem to be able to identify faces wherever we look. Based on congenital processes of perception and learning processes, we constantly complement whatever is exposed to our eyes. The same applies to the recognition of faces.
Motifs of masks, fancy dresses and role-plays are recurring themes within the works of Claudia & Julia Müller. The artists constantly invent new forms and interpret them in a humorous and playful way. Two paper masks hanging on the wall are new objects that consist of a white silhouette and a black one on top of it. Their shapes remind one of a mixture of popular culture and the so-called Wired Folk Art. The masks are another example for the interpretation of the puzzled picture: The observer dithers between ornament and mask, black and white, figuration and abstraction.
Claudia (*1964) & Julia (*1965) Müller live and work in Basel. Since the middle of the nineties, they have exhibited their works throughout Europe. In 2008, they will present a solo exhibition at the Kunstverein Bonn. For the next year an artist book is in planning, which will appear in co-operation with Christoph Keller at JRP/Ringier.
The artists will be present at the opening. For further questions regarding the press materials, please contact Claudia Friedli (c.friedli@peterkilchmann.com).
A parallel exhibition in which the new works of Scottish artist Duncan Marquiss will be shown for the first time, will also take place.