On 11 September 2024, as part of Berlin Art Week, the exhibition Durchdringen: Das U/unheimliche s/Sehen opens at the Stiftung Kunstforum Berliner Volksbank. Michael Müller is the first artist to curate an exhibition on its premises. In addition, the extensive temporary remodelling of the exhibition spaces will offer a completely new viewing experience.
Image above: Exhibition view “Durchdringen: Das U/unheimliche s/Sehen”, Stiftung Kunstforum Berliner Volksbank, VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2024 (Werner Tübke), Studio Michael Müller, Berlin, Estate of Ingeborg Hunzinger, Photo: Natalia Carstens Photography
A wedge-shaped black installation dominates the exhibition space on the ground floor. Visitors have to go into the darkness to reach the art. The room becomes deeper and deeper – you literally have to adopt a different perspective and scan the pictures with your eyes in order to recognise details in the sparse light.
The production puts the audience’s viewing habits to the test. A superficial glance in passing is not possible. The works of art only reveal their secrets and open up scope for interpretation on closer inspection.
This visual experiment was conceived by the German-British artist Michael Anthony Müller. As guest curator, he “penetrates” the art collection of Berliner Volksbank – selected works from the collection and other loans appear in a new context through his gaze. The presentation he has put together prevents the possibility of categorising artists and works according to conventional aesthetic, historical or stylistic categories.
In terms of content and atmosphere, Müller focuses on the uncanny, which Sigmund Freud describes as the once familiar that has been repressed. When that which should remain hidden and “secret” emerges again, it becomes the “uncanny”.
In the second part of the exhibition on the upper floor, Müller responds to the works in the Berliner Volksbank art collection with his own art. Visual barriers and unusual hangings challenge visitors to change their usual perspectives and search for deeper meanings in the dialogue between the pictures.
Highlights of the exhibition include Aufwärts im April (1956) by Gerhard Altenbourg, which Michael Müller has integrated into a work of his own, Michael Müller’s video The attempt to be abstract under hypnosis, which shows the creation of the drawings Session on Friday, May 2 (2007), which are also on display, and Hans Bellmer’s etchings Heinrich von Kleist: Les Marionettes (1969), which refer to Kleist’s text Über das Marionettentheater.
The exhibition shows over 100 works by 23 artists: Gerhard Altenbourg, Armando, Roger Ballen, Hans Bellmer, Asger Carlsen, Rolf Faber, Galli, René Graetz, Hans-Hendrik Grimmling, Bertold Haag, Martin Heinig, Hirschvogel, Ingeborg Hunzinger, Leiko Ikemura, Aneta Kajzer, Max Kaminski, Henri Michaux, Michael Müller, Michael Oppitz, Cornelia Schleime, Stefan Schröter, Werner Tübke, Max Uhlig.
About Michael Müller
In his works, the German-British artist Michael Anthony Müller (* 1970) deals with the aesthetics and visualisation of complex thought processes, which he questions in terms of their sensual experience and material content. Based on historical narratives, scientific methods, social norms and language and number systems, he develops an artistic formal language that repeatedly pushes these systems and structures to their limits. Müller expresses himself through a wide range of media – from painting and sculpture to installations and performances. He lives in Berlin and exhibits his work internationally. From 2015 to 2018, he taught as a professor at the Berlin University of the Arts (UdK).
WHEN?
Opening: Wednesday, 11 September 2024
Exhibition dates: Wednesday, 11 September until Sunday, 08 December 2024
Opening hours: Tue-Sun, 10 am – 6 pm
WHERE?
Stiftung Kunstforum Berliner Volksbank
Kaiserdamm 105,
14057 Berlin-Charlottenburg
COST?
Admission: 5 EUR
Reduced: 3 EUR
up to 18 years free
