English
Deutsch
until 19.10 | #4389ARTatBerlin | Haverkampf Leistenschneider shows from 07. September 2024 the exhibition Der Anfang steht schon fest by the artist Alex Müller.
Using painting, sculpture and drawing, Alex Müller creates spaces and stages them as walk-in pictures. Her works often transform organic materials, such as apples or blue poppies and objects taken from everyday reality into fantastic, paradoxical and enigmatic arrangements. Alongside autobiographical sources, the cultural memory of a society shaped by the media plays a central role in the creation of these constellations.
The inspiration from television series from the artist’s childhood and youth, her admiration for filmmakers such as Peter Greenaway and her fascination with mythological and astrological knowledge, but also German history, the division of Germany and her family’s East-West constellation are of great importance. Accordingly, Alex Müller’s works oscillate between identification and mystery, the creation of meaning and hermeticism, skillfully playing with the boundaries between painting, drawing, sculpture, installation, film, sound and performance.
Alex Müller, Hedda Loebel, 2009, ink on fabric, 73 x 43 cm; Photo: Peter Hinschläger
Dominic Eichler writes in the exhibition essay: “Everything we do rests on what has gone before. When we come to art, aesthetically speaking, we walk into a fully furnished room bringing along our fully furnished selves. For her first solo show at the gallery ‘Der Anfang steht schon fest’ (The Beginning is already Set) artist Alex Müller has reimagined the gallery’s upperclass bel etagé 19th century apartment with its classic proportions and lofty ceilings as if it were oddly re-domesticated. (An exhibition in a gallery is a cohabitation or form of vibe squatting, a claiming of someone’s space, if only a temporarily.)
The artist’s constellation of diverse works summon up a subjective, fragmentary, familial space with many pasts and stories to tell. A suite of figurative paintings (some freestanding with ‘fat’ padded and stitched surfaces), curious sculptures (like Der Ursprung, 2024 that recalls a weird sex organ) and interventions (among them poppyseed wall drawings) echo, albeit strangely, experiences awakened from the artist’s family-minded memories and symbol-laden subconscious. Production and reproduction, seeds and reflections abound.
Alex Müller, Die Zartheit des Täglichen 3, (The delicacy of everyday 3), 2024, soap, ceramic, fabric, 38 x 30 cm
About Alex Müller
Alex Müller (born 1969) lives and works in Berlin. Her works are represented in collections such as the Leopold Hoesch Museum, the Julia Stoschek Collection, the Grässlin Collection and numerous private collections and have been presented in museum exhibitions at the Kunsthalle Baden-Baden, the Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt, the Kunstmuseum Stuttgart and most recently at the Kunsthalle Nürnberg.
Opening: Friday, 06. September 2024, 6-8 pm.
Exhibition dates: Saturday, 07. September – Saturday, 19. October 2024
To the gallery
Title image caption: Alex Müller, Die verpackte Unbekannte (The wrapped unknown), 2024, acrylic, ink on GDR packaging paper on canvas, 150 x 150 x 10 cm. Photo: Ludger Paffrath
Exhibition Alex Müller – Haverkampf Leistenschneider | Contemporary Art – | Ausstellungen Berlin Galerien | ART at Berlin
