Sali Muller
GROUP EXHIBITIONS (SELECTION)
2020 Add-on, Künstlerhaus Dortmund, Dortmund, Germany
2020 Art Rotterdam, The Flat – Massimo Carasi, Rotterdam ,The Netherlands
2019 Luxembourg Art Week, Luxembourg City, Luxembourg
2019 Strings, White Noise Gallery, Rome, Italy
2019 Bienvenue Art Fair, The Flat – Massimo Carasi, Cité Internationale des Arts, Paris, France
2019 4/10, IKOB Museum of Contemporary Art, Eupen, Belgium
2019 Art2cure, Galerie Indépendance, Luxembourg City, Luxembourg
2019 Spiegelungen, Gallery Nosbaum Reding, Luxembourg City, Luxembourg,
2019 Volta Basel, The Flat – Massimo Carasi, Basel, Switzerland
2019 Dusk till Dawn, The Flat – Massimo Carasi, Milan, Italy
2019 Digital, e.artis contemporary, Chemnitz, Germany
2018 Premio Lissone, MAC Museo d’Arte Contemporanea, Lissone, Italy
2018 Luxembourg Art Week, Luxembourg City, Luxembourg
2018 Spiegelungen, Alte Feuerwache – Projektraum, Berlin, Germany
2018 Summer Exhibition, JD Malat Gallery, Mayfair, London, The United Kingdom
2018 Ein gemachter Mensch – künstlerische Fragen an Identitäten, Kallmann-Museum Ismaning, Munich, Germany
2018 Art2cure, Galerie Indépendance, Luxembourg City, Luxembourg
2018 Birthmarks / Voglie, The Flat – Massimo Carasi, Milan, Italy
2018 Black & White, e.artis contemporary, Chemnitz, Germany
2017 Lo sguardo di Narciso – The Gaze of Narcissus, The Flat – Massimo Carasi, Milan, Italy
2017 Luxembourg Art Week, Luxembourg City, Luxembourg
2017 YIA Art Fair, The Flat – Massimo Carasi, Carreau du Temple, Paris, France
2017 Luxembourg Art Prize, Galerie Hervé Lancelin, Luxembourg City, Luxembourg
2017 Auto I Mobil: Epoche der Mobilität I Epoche der Kommunikation, Tufa Trier, Trier, Germany
2017 Aesthetica Art Prize, York, The United Kingdom
2016 Encoding the Urban, Regionale 17, Kunsthaus Baselland, Basel, Switzerland
2016 Call XVIII, Luis Adelantado Gallery, Valencia, Spain
2016 Error X, Ostrale, Int. Ausstellung Zeitgenössischer Künste, Dresden, Germany
2016 GroupShow.lu, Zidoun-Bossuyt Gallery, Luxembourg City, Luxembourg
2016 Aesthetica Art Prize, York, The United Kingdom
2015 Incubarte, 7 International Art Festival, Valencia, Spain
2015 8e Biennale d’Art Contemporain, Strassen, Luxembourg
2015 La Liberté d’Expression, Musée Nationale de la Résistance, Luxembourg
2015 BlauBlauBlau, Tufa Trier, Trier, Germany
2014 London Calling, Shoreditch, London, The United Kingdom
2014 The Project, Galerie Bradtke, Luxembourg City, Luxembourg
2014 Salon du CAL, Luxembourg City, Luxembourg
2013 Recall, Kjub Gallery, Luxembourg City, Luxembourg
2013 Expo Urbaine Art Door, Luxembourg City, Luxembourg
2013 7e Biennale d’Art Contemporain, Strassen, Luxembourg
SOLO/DUO SHOWS
2020 Inside, Espace d’Art Suzanne Savary, Thionville, France
2020 Here and there I Ici et là, Centre d’Art Dominique Lang, Luxembourg
2019 Kunst im Bau, e.artis lab, Wirkbau, Chemnitz, Germany
2019 Das Zeitfenster, CeCiL’s Box, Cercle Cité, Luxembourg City, Luxembourg
2019 Fragil, e.artis contemporary, Chemnitz, Germany
2017 Museum of Vanities, IKOB Museum of Contemporary Art, Eupen, Belgium
2017 Blackout, e.artis contemporary, Chemnitz, Germany
2016 Ecriture Sans Fin, AICA International Association of Art Critics, Kiosk, Luxembourg
COLLECTIONS
MAC Museo d’Arte Contemporanea Lissone
Collections d’Art de la Ville de Dudelange
Private collection, Milan
IKOB Museum of Contemporary Art
Private collection, Milan
Municipality of Strassen
EDITIONS
IKOB Museum of Contemporary Art
e.artis contemporary
PORTFOLIOS IN LIBRARIES
Arken Museum of Modern Art
Arter Space for Art
e.artis contemporary
Galeria Elba Benitez
IKOB Museum of Contemporary Art
JD Malat Gallery
Kallmann-Museum Ismaning
Kunsthalle zu Kiel
Kunstmuseum Krefeld
Kunst- und Museumsbibliothek Köln
Künstlerhaus Dortmund
La Galerie Centre d’Art Contemporain
Latvian National Museum of Art
MAMAC Nice
Neues Museum Nürnberg
Oldenburger Kunstverein
Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam
The Flat – Massimo Carasi
AWARDS & SHORTLISTS
2018 Premio della Critica, MAC Museo d’Arte Contemporanea, Lissone, Italy
2017 Luxembourg Art Prize, Finalist, Galerie Hervé Lancelin, Luxembourg
2017 Aesthetica Art Prize, Longlist, York, The United Kingdom
2016 Aesthetica Art Prize, Longlist, York, The United Kingdom
2016 Int. Emerging Artist Award, Shortlist, Dubai, United Arab Emirates
2016 Salon de Montrouge, Shortlist, Paris, France
2015 Blooom Award, Nomination, Cologne, Germany
2015 Incubarte Award, 7 International Art Festival, Valencia, Spain
2013 Prix Jeune Artiste, 7e Biennale d’Art Contemporain, Luxembourg
EDUCATION
2009 History of Arts, University Trier, Germany
2006 Master in Visual Arts, UMB University Marc Bloch, Strasbourg, France
THE WORLD BEHIND THE MIRRORS
Friedemann Hoerner
Curatorial Assistant , IKOB, Museum of Contemporary Art
Sali Muller tends to obscure the view onto her objects, something which causes me as a viewer to turn my attention back onto myself and to examine how I perceive her works through the applied or removed layer. Standing opposite the works, I can no longer see myself clearly even though I can perceive myself diffusely. So if I don’t have a polished mirror image of myself available, then I am thrown back to what remains, what lies behind: in other words, to the question as to which substance I can possibly find in myself, or which instability I must endure in the dissolution of my self-image. The works of the artist reflect upon the theme of vanity – or upon narcissistic disturbance as the extreme form thereof – inasmuch as they do not even allow the viewer to become absorbed in his own mirror-image.
In any case, I must proceed past external appearance. Even if the silicon in the work CRYSTAL CLEAR from 2017 promises pellucid permeability, what results from the material spread extensively over the mirror is a wondrous dissolution of one’s self-image. This ultimately offers me the opportunity to see myself as part of a universal whole – a meditative experience.
The sound of the scraping sandpaper which the ground-down mirror conveys as a resonating body within the restrained sound installation THE IMPERCEPTIBLE SELF is analogous to the gnawing tooth of time, which no one in this world can escape. The recording of the sounds made at the time of the act of sanding summons up the notion of an inscription into a layer (whose result we see) – even if this can only be achieved in perception, which in turn lies in the ear of the viewer. Thus the world behind the mirror evoked by the artist tells the viewer that the past is necessarily relativized in the act of remembering, that the perspective onto the past becomes increasingly diffuse and disparate the more layers accumulate in 13 the memory.
What is past cannot be held onto, and so in the encounter with Muller’s works – and with ourselves – we can learn transitoriness. But not only that: The latent melancholy inherent to the theme of vanitas disappears as soon as we face up to the latent self-image with which the artist confronts us and begin to see it as a given condition in our existence. Experiencing evanescence as something incomprehensible and fragmentary but also as something that belongs to us just as much as the skull does to the memento mori: Sali Muller’s works allow, there where they draw the curtain, a new openness to be experienced.