Oliver Koerner von Gustorf

Comprising over 4 volumes with the ambiguous title " Ernstes Spiel" (Serious Play), the planned catalogue raisonné of Michael Müller's art is a unique undertaking. It will introduce the near inexhaustible oeuvre with close collaboration from the artist himself, providing a comprehensive overview of the painting and graphic art, sculpture, installations and performances. In addition, it will present Müller's texts, which cover a spectrum of different disciplines the natural sciences, poetry and linguistics, philosophy, and music. The catalogue raisonné, published in German, English and Chinese, is a project spanning several decades and, in addition to detailed documentation, will also offer a classification of Müller's art by renowned authors. Volume .3. presents Müller's painterly work from 2 2 to 2 2 in full and in detail for the first time. With accompanying essays by Lukas Töpfer, Rudolf Zwirner and Oliver Koerner von Gustorf. ???????·??????????4 ??,????????????,??????????«?????»???????????,???????????????????,??????????????????????????,??????????????????????????????????????????????????????,????????????,??????????,???????????????? ? .3? 2 2 ??2 2 ????????????·????????·????????·??·?·????????????

Stephan Grunenberg (b. 1954) paints peculiar portraits: not heads or sitting and reclining figures but seemingly independent feet, legs, trousers, socks or soles of shoes. These and other under-appreciated motives are playfully arranged in captivating compositions which take issue with our hierarchical habits while looking at art. " Leaving out the ' civilized', educated head and centering on neglected parts such as the legs, including the lower abdomen-- which is either eroticized or made taboo-- is the artist's point", writes Oliver Koerner von Gustorf in an essay that accompanies the images inside this small and attractive new book. The paintings reproduced in this volume were all exhibited in Grunenberg's latest exhibition in 2024, which was titled tongue-in-cheek " Representatives Regional To Earth."

Secundino Hern ndez's (b. Madrid, 1975; lives and works in Madrid und Berlin) paintings and works on paper blend figuration and abstraction, the linearity of drawing and exuberant color, minimalism and gesture. Slowly and methodically moving across the canvas, Hern ndez sets down sinuous lines and marks, using a brush or applying the paint straight from the tube before rinsing and scratching off the surfaces. The resulting compositions feel organized yet charged with explosive energy and evince manifold references: a physicality reminiscent of Action Painting, cartoon-style terse figuration, and passages that bring to mind Old Masters and especially the Spaniards El Greco and Vel zquez.

Sonja Yakovleva's (b. Potsdam, 1989; lives and works in Frankfurt am Main) silhouettes are informed by her sex-positive feminist views. They mix and match pornography with art-historical references, folkloristic motifs, fairy tales, and myths that have served to ingrain misogynistic, racist, and homophobic ideologies in the collective consciousness since the Middle Ages. The dissemination of such materials was facilitated by the paper cut, a medium that encouraged simplified graphical representations and was seen as domestic and appropriate for women. Yakovleva's intentions in adopting it, however, are contrarian: her iridescent silhouettes grapple with women's stories, precarious gray areas, power relations, representation, sexuality, and violence in novel ways.