February 28 until April 12, 2014

Yasmin Müller: Caramel

 

Caramel – as sweet and soft this exhibition-title might sound, the works that Yasmin Müller (born 1977 in Villingen-Schwenningen) is showing in her solo-show at Cruise & Callas are nothing like that, at all. The artist arranged five black metal objects in the gallery space, initially confronting the viewer with a cold aesthetic and a repelling strength. Some objects build groups, some stand solitarily in the space. Their form reminds of furniture, more precisely objects to sit on, like chairs, armchairs or a chaise longue. Stripped of their function since seating surfaces, back and arm rests are perforated by bars or are even non-existent, it is impossible to sit on them. The single metal bars are irregularly intertwined and form repetitive patterns. Looking at them with the white background of the wall, the graphical lines of the bars outgrow their original function and autonomously develop further from their original form, they pierce through space and incorporate their surrounding. They embody what they actually would embrace, thus transforming from a mere functional object to an individualized subject.

 

Müller deliberately assigns titles to her sculptures that suggest character traits or embodiments, calls them e.g. Z. Body. Close Up“, ZY. Soft (Mega Soft)“ or Tourist. Absence“. As individual characters they not only claim their own space, but are set in relationship to one another and moreover call for a positioning of the viewer. Either as an outsider or as part of it he can look at the constellation from alternate viewpoints, a grouping reminiscent of family constellations. This impression is even more intensified when one realizes that the individual form of Müller‘s objects originates and derives from one another. In this, they find their roles - roles that they assign to each other by distancing from another.

 

Yasmin Müller developed these works in an intensive exchange with her muse Zora. Müller started out by taking photographs of her muse. She used her as an object by placing her and painting on her body, but by doing so she was also running against her muse‘s own will. Thus she provoked the thematically interesting aspects of their conjoint work: How much does one project into the other? To what extent does one use and take possesion of the other?

Müller consequently inscribed this reciprocal relationship into her steel works: Y-, M- and Z-shaped bars - Yasmin Müller‘s and Zora‘s initals - are their main contruction parts, which are inseparably intertwined base elements of their forming.