Deine Kunst - Chapter Two: The Art(ist) is Present
Venue: Städtische Galerie Wolfsburg, Germany
Exhibition Period: May 19 - October 6, 2019
“Michael Müller: Deine Kunst” - the second version has two alternative titles: for one, “The Art(ist) is Present” (“-ist” is in parentheses; “artist” becomes “art”), and for another, “The Death of the Author is not Permitted.” Both titles include citations.
“Deine Kunst” — the title of the series — shows the collection of the Städtische Galerie Wolfsburg (Wolfsburg Municipal Gallery) in several consecutive versions, curated by Michael Müller. … Or rather: it shows the collection of the Städtische Galerie Wolfsburg in the form of an unusual “solo exhibition”, a polyphonic installation by Michael Müller, a Berlin-based artist.
Michael Müller was invited to select pieces from the inventory and to stage them for the audience for two years in the castle’s west wing. He decided not to compose just one exhibition from the collection’s works but to show several different versions — with the collection and about the collection. The individual versions are curated in an eccentric and very “work-like” way. Even the exhibition rooms were changed down to the smallest detail for the new presentation. The changed rooms stood at the center of the greatly reduced first version. Now, the second exhibition of the series follows. It too remains empty in certain respects.
As you can see, you see little … almost no works, mainly titles. But there is an audioguide describing some of the missing works. In the next version, the works will then actually be viewable in the Städtische Galerie. For the moment, they remain envisioned, imagined — “live in your head.”
The current exhibition is dedicated to three intertwined motifs: above all, to the motif of authorship and the self-portrait, but also, marginally, of the signature. Authorship in particular is examined critically through appropriations, reinterpretations, and reframing and is fractured in diverse ways by means of the double role of the artist-curator Michael Müller. Is the collection co-opted by this process? Can a solo exhibition be a group exhibition or a group exhibition a solo exhibition?
… But that is enough now. You know what to do. Enter the number, then simply listen. Everything further is up to you. “Deine Kunst”. … Or is it not?
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