reviews claudia & Julia Muller
ClAudiA & JuliA Muller:
dAs dileMMA des siChtbAren
Peter KilchM ann, Zurich
12 January – 16 February
Claudia and Julia Müller are sisters, in life and in art, and their work is always A single brushstroke evokes eyes, ears or a silhouette in a classical
the fruit of a close collaborative labour. Born in the 1960s, they belong to forest scenery; faces emerge from the depths to inhabit the wall, like more
a generation of Swiss artists who have increasingly asserted themselves on or less recognisable ghosts. It’s an installation that keeps you intensely
the national and international scene these past years; artists such as Fabrice aware of its fairytale and reverie-like quality. Nature here seems to mutter
Gygi, Lori Hersberger, Pipilotti Rist, Ugo Rondinone, Gerda Steiner & and cast threatening glances at the viewer: a reminder of the monsters that
Jörg Lenzlinger and Sidney Stucki. Living and working in Basel, the Müller inhabit our various legends, of the darker parts of our imagination or of the
sisters have been exhibiting throughout Europe since the mid-1990s. more disillusioned recesses of our everyday lives. What if what we perceive,
Known for their wall-drawing projects, installations and videos, each this shows asks, is only a tiny part of all that we cannot see?
exhibition opens a new chapter on the elaboration of the sisters’ artistic In two hands indistinguishable from each other, the Müller sisters
universe, a world of conscious games of imagination and premonition. This have worked up a two-colour drawing tinted with an old-fashioned sepia
year bodes well for them; after their show at Peter Kilchmann, April sees a which evokes the work of some forgotten baroque artist: a reference to
solo exhibition opening at Bonn’s Kunstverein. the past which perhaps allows them to talk about human experience at
The sisters first collect images which they then transpose to large- one remove from the contemporary, and towards the universal. In the
format compositions drawn directly on the wall. This is undeniably the massed profusion of elements, outlined in their flat black tints, all links seem
most important aspect of their work. The magnified drawings shed the possible, reminding the conscious mind how nothing is separable from its
characteristics they had in their earlier smaller format, which might direct surroundings. Karine Tissot
the eye to a more intimate experience. Instead the transformation of scale
offers the spectator the experience of a complete immersion in a world
drawn larger than life. At Kilchmann, the spectator is plunged into a world
in which the relationship between human beings and the plant world is
explored via elements of childhood, absurdism and mysticism. Despite an
easily accessible figurative style, the Müllers’s compositions are far from
simple illustrations of a dreamlike world; they are very much about reality,
or rather about that which exists between reality and ourselves: the world of
Das Dilemma des Sichtbaren,
emotions and perceptions, intangible dimensions which bring a whole new
2008 (installation view).
Photo: a. burger. courtesy Galerie
meaning to the ephemeral art of wall-painting. Peter Kilchmann, Zürich
Artreview 142
REVIEWS_April_P2.indd 142 3/3/08 12:42:26
Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40  |  Page 41  |  Page 42  |  Page 43  |  Page 44  |  Page 45  |  Page 46  |  Page 47  |  Page 48  |  Page 49  |  Page 50  |  Page 51  |  Page 52  |  Page 53  |  Page 54  |  Page 55  |  Page 56  |  Page 57  |  Page 58  |  Page 59  |  Page 60  |  Page 61  |  Page 62  |  Page 63  |  Page 64  |  Page 65  |  Page 66  |  Page 67  |  Page 68  |  Page 69  |  Page 70  |  Page 71  |  Page 72  |  Page 73  |  Page 74  |  Page 75  |  Page 76  |  Page 77  |  Page 78  |  Page 79  |  Page 80  |  Page 81  |  Page 82  |  Page 83  |  Page 84  |  Page 85  |  Page 86  |  Page 87  |  Page 88  |  Page 89  |  Page 90  |  Page 91  |  Page 92  |  Page 93  |  Page 94  |  Page 95  |  Page 96  |  Page 97  |  Page 98  |  Page 99  |  Page 100  |  Page 101  |  Page 102  |  Page 103  |  Page 104  |  Page 105  |  Page 106  |  Page 107  |  Page 108  |  Page 109  |  Page 110  |  Page 111  |  Page 112  |  Page 113  |  Page 114  |  Page 115  |  Page 116  |  Page 117  |  Page 118  |  Page 119  |  Page 120  |  Page 121  |  Page 122  |  Page 123  |  Page 124  |  Page 125  |  Page 126  |  Page 127  |  Page 128  |  Page 129  |  Page 130  |  Page 131  |  Page 132  |  Page 133  |  Page 134  |  Page 135  |  Page 136  |  Page 137  |  Page 138  |  Page 139  |  Page 140  |  Page 141  |  Page 142  |  Page 143  |  Page 144  |  Page 145  |  Page 146  |  Page 147  |  Page 148  |  Page 149  |  Page 150  |  Page 151  |  Page 152  |  Page 153  |  Page 154  |  Page 155  |  Page 156  |  Page 157  |  Page 158  |  Page 159  |  Page 160  |  Page 161  |  Page 162  |  Page 163  |  Page 164  |  Page 165  |  Page 166  |  Page 167  |  Page 168  |  Page 169  |  Page 170  |  Page 171  |  Page 172  |  Page 173  |  Page 174  |  Page 175  |  Page 176  |  Page 177  |  Page 178  |  Page 179  |  Page 180  |  Page 181  |  Page 182  |  Page 183  |  Page 184  |  Page 185  |  Page 186  |  Page 187  |  Page 188  |  Page 189  |  Page 190  |  Page 191  |  Page 192  |  Page 193  |  Page 194  |  Page 195  |  Page 196  |  Page 197  |  Page 198  |  Page 199  |  Page 200  |  Page 201  |  Page 202  |  Page 203  |  Page 204  |  Page 205  |  Page 206  |  Page 207  |  Page 208  |  Page 209  |  Page 210  |  Page 211  |  Page 212  |  Page 213  |  Page 214  |  Page 215