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Stefan Muller at Christian Nagel
Art in America, June-July, 2005 by David Ebony
This recent exhibition, titled "Flee, You Fools!", featured 11 large abstract canvases of the past two years by Stefan Muller, a 34-year-old Frankfurt-born artist based in Berlin. Also known in Germany as a musician, frequently performing and exhibiting with his painter-musician colleague Sergej Jensen, Muller explores in his painting a kind of spare and abject formalism. Contrasting with the young figurative painters of the Leipzig school, whose works stem from traditions of socialist realism and Soviet graphic design, Muller's project is closely allied with post-Minimalism and Color Field painting, although both of those labels are ill-suited to his quirky sensibility. Most of his works feature large expanses of empty, unprimed canvas, typically relieved here and there by rudimentary geometric shapes scratched onto the surface with felt markers, as well as bleach stains and dirty footprints.
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Many compositions are further enlivened by subtle poetic interventions: a sparkling patch of glitter and confetti fixed to the lower edge of Estrogen Puddle, for example, or the scraps of colorful paper and dried paint fragments scattered and glued randomly over the surface of a large untitled canvas. Another expansive work, Boulder Dash (7 1/2 by 6 feet), features an imposing hexagon in white bands spanning the width of a dark linen canvas. Made with bleach stains, the bands, on close inspection, prove to be filled with long, thin lines in faint colors, carefully applied with felt markers. In another striking untitled work, vertical splashes of orange, turquoise and mauve acrylic paint cascade over a wide circle of bleached canvas at the center of the large composition.
As appealing as certain pieces here may be, the show's title hints that Muller is not out to simply please art audiences. His paintings can be abrasive and unsettling at times. For instance, Fashion Stitch, perhaps the most provocative work on view, shows a cluster of four large swastikas floating in the center of a large canvas. The composition could be seen as a neo-Nazi gesture. However, it is more likely that the artist, by delicately rendering the shapes with colorful felt markers, aims to restore the ominous fascist emblem to its benign origins as a symbol of good luck.
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