Galerie Russi Klenner
Luckauer Str. 16,
10969 Berlin
In
the centre of Konrad Mühe’s first solo exhibition at the gallery
Russi Klenner, which is enigmatically entitled “Your smile was
drawn”, there is an installation.
This
peculiar interior is inhabited by three characters: the first one is
a rolled up and bended carpet with a video projector attached to its
“trunk”, which is sitting like a figure on the floor. The
corresponding projection, a white rectangle, which slowly subsides to
the back (from a room perspective view), shows a stretched sheet,
which wraps up an undefined object with drapery. The second character
is a table. At its head a projector projects in a quick sequence a
compilation of glances of different dogs taken from feature films.
These glances are added in such a way that the dogs seem to
alternately look around the room at the projector or the observer.
Here again, the table can be interpreted as the dog’s body and the
projector as the head. The third and maybe most enigmatic protagonist
of the ensemble is a corner cabinet placed in the centre of the room,
from which a feature film is being projected. However, only faint
shadows can be seen of it. The almost immaterial quality of this
projection is solely defined by the way of the light into the void.
All videos of the installation are shown in a loop and without sound.
They seem to be verbal (even though mute) expressions of the
characters. At the same time, they are also being observed by the
characters. Being an observer of this scenery, one becomes witness to
a self-reflexive contemplation, but through the glances of the dogs
one is also being incorporated into what is happening. All this
reflects a certain gloomy humour – the futile attempt to take on a
role and to position and articulate oneself adequately.
In
the mural reliefs apartment
M, apartment G floor
plans of apartments Mühe once lived in, are being reproduced in an
exemplary manner. For this purpose, stones were pressed into coloured
sponge material. This vague sketching of clear lines with irregular
stones in this soft, absorbing material contradicts the precision of
an architectural drawing. It is more about a fundamental need of a
confined protected space that can be imagined and whose provisional
nature or even permeability one is perfectly aware of.
In
the second room a video installation is being combined with a series
of prints. In Avalanche
the
artist is being carried by the water of a river like a piece of
driftwood, remaining stoically in this position even when coming
across obstacles such as stones in the shallow river bed. Four
variations of the same situation, the appearance and disappearance of
the figure from the (vertical) image detail are being projected onto
a cube made of stacked glass plates. We are observing a body being
under the influence of external conditions, just like in a physical
series of tests.
The
series of prints Gesang
in finsteren Wäldern (Song in dark forests) is
based on novels that are of special importance to Mühe – by
visualising only fragments of texts from the margins of the book
pages an alternative
narration
evolves, which captures atmospheric moments in a poetic compression.
The formal rigour of the work, playing with the volume of the book,
with the depth of the image space, the materiality and transparency
of the book pages thereby creates an intriguing contrast to the
apparent pathos of the title.
The
title of the exhibition Dein
Lächeln wurde gezeichnet implies
different interpretations and associations, such as being marked or
recording, and leaves open to whom or what the statement is
addressed. In Mühe’s work displays are always understood as an
integral part of the work, they are cautious psychological miniatures
that are able to maintain a certain emotional distance through their
conceptual consistency.
Text : Bettina
Klein