Stefan Müller

In these new paintings, notoriously nonchalant Stefan Müller has managed to be even more distant and subtle, testing, in different ways, the limits of what we define as painting. And though he makes consistent use of fabric drawn tautly over a stretcher, to a certain extent the medium is only a point of departure for him: The production of each picture reinterprets painterly conventions in a new way. In general, Müller creates nonrepresentational, material-specific pictorial spaces in which he reduces the traditional application of paint to the bare minimum and blithely quashes attempts at illusion. And yet Müller’s path of resistance-by-least-resistance produces a very special, quiet, and powerful poetry. Bärbel, Blumen auf dem Tisch (Bärbel, Flowers on the Table) (all works 2006) is one example: A cloudy grayish-beige stain is embedded in the unprimed canvas like dirt in a dishcloth, and the viewer searches in vain for something to hold on to in its hazy depths. Tiny dots of color radiate from the work, wispy outlines evoke spatial depth, and both hint at the image suggested by the title. At the same time, the materials listed on the checklist are dirt, confetti, pencil, and cotton canvas, and that is exactly what we see. In Gib mir deine Hand (Give Me Your Hand), the painting is composed entirely from woven strips of linen in various muted colors. Ripping things up, producing leftovers, making new intertwinings—Müller’s demonstrative actions leave behind an emptiness that is replete with texture and minimal rhythms.