Markus Müller: Rauch (Red)

The artist’s book “Rauch” (Smoke) by Markus Müller revolves around the significance of the decorative in our culture and history. In it, the basel-based artist gathers drawings of ornaments, chairs, sculptures or buildings as well as remnants of work processes such as sanding dust and wood cuttings. Six essays reflect on acts that are important to Markus Müller,suchasarranging,decorating or exaggerating.

The publication was developed as the first programmatic work and part of Markus Müller’s solo exhibition “Im Umbau” at the Bündner Kunstmuseum Chur and opens up access to the fundamentals of his sculptural work for the first time. The exhibition thematises the potential of reconstruction and explores the significance of transitions and spaces in between. Symbolically, the artist creates an installation that reinterprets the exhibition space as an attic. Markus Müller builds an inward-looking place, an intimate space where plans are made, (thought) models developed and memories stored – and the book can be read.

The exhibition becomes a stage on which questions about the fragile nature of the artistic working process itself are negotiated. The artist’s book “Rauch” also focuses on these sculptural questions.

As a mirror of the exhibition, it illuminates the medium of sculpture in relation to its history and significance in our society. The fact that a book as a medium of reflection becomes the starting point of an exhibition emphasises Markus Müller’s interest in fundamental questions about the design process. With the chronological reversal of production and reflection, he follows up on reflections on the origin of cultural types of form, which he has so far dealt with mainly in sculptural works.

In the process, the art-historical references embedded in his works become more of a formula than a specific quotation. In the current digital network, the linear view of cultural history gives way to a perception of the simultaneity of styles, epochs and discourses. On the internet, as a network of images and information, everything takes place in the now. Markus Müller’s works underline this repositioning of the historical context and create the basis for a reflection on the extent to which cultural history can nevertheless be constitutive for our society.

Pages: 256
Dimensions: 124 × 190 mm
Format: Softcover
Year: 2022
Design: Maike Hamacher, Valentin Hindermann, Madeleine Stahel
Publisher: edition fink