until 28.01. | #3737ARTatBerlin | Galerie Société presents the exhibition from 20 December 2022 “Fünf Figuren” by the artist Kaspar Müller.
Galerie Société presents Five Figures, a solo exhibition by Swiss artist Kaspar Müller. The exhibition includes five straw figures that inhabit the gallery. Built on a scale slightly larger than their actual size, these blurred bodies enact what Müller calls “psychological and behavioural levels”. Each figure performs a simple, archetypal gesture: One points a finger at the visitors, another gives a sign to stop, while still others seem to cross the room with large strides or move about on all fours.
As a material, straw evokes a multitude of associations. Viewed within the larger framework of Müller’s practice, which is interested in the relationships between economy and craft, straw has a dual status as both practical commodity and non-functional decoration. Its use as bedding, building material and animal feed is practically embedded in European DNA, making it at the same time one of the first commodities. Straw is still used today for decorative purposes, but it has always had an almost supernatural function when used to make talismans that would prevent disease or guarantee health and prosperity. Recreating the human form in such an unceremonious and weathered material underscores the feelings of empathy that people tend to feel towards abstract and inanimate figures – a kind of affirmation of likeness through difference, much like Müller’s ongoing work with his orbs of hand-blown glass. But while his orbs have a reflective quality that captures their surroundings, his straw figures have an absorbent capacity: they absorb the space around them and, like the metaphorical straw man, divert your attention.
Kasper Müller (b. 1983, Schaffhausen) lives and works in Berlin and Zurich. Müller has had solo exhibitions at the Vleeshal, Middelburg; Kunsthalle Bern; Museum im Bellpark, Kriens; Kunsthalle Zürich and Centre d’Art Contemporain, Lausanne. He has participated in group exhibitions at the Fondazione Prada, Venice; Casa Masaccio, San Giovanni Valdarno; the Swiss Institute, New York; the Istituto Svizzero di Roma, Rome; MAMCO, Geneva; and the Aachener Kunstverein, Aachen, among others.
Ausstellungsdaten: Tuesday, 20 December until Saturday, 28 January 2023.
To the gallery
Caption Title: Courtesy of Galerie Société, Kaspar Müller
Exhibition Kaspar Müller – Galerie Société | Zeitgenössische Kunst in Berlin | Contemporary Art | Ausstellungen Berlin Galerien | ART at Berlin