Michael Müller

Michael Müller (b. 1970, Germany) is an artist whose manifold, proliferating oeuvre cannot be ascribed to any one-way interpretation. He continuously broadens the methods of his artistic expression, combining works on paper with painting, text-based work, sculpture, found objects, music, and performance. Müller studied sculpting and fine arts at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf with Magdalena Jetelová. From 2015 to 2018, he was a professor at the Berlin University of the Arts. In 2018, he was nominated for the Kunstpreis der Böttcherstraße, Bremen. Müller lives and works in Berlin. The artistic work by Müller develops out of existing historical narratives, methods and norms: systems which he pushes to their limits by modifying them along fictitious lines. Every boundary – whether it is culturally encoded, materially circumscribed, or rationally established – is a provocation for Müller. The spectrum of his themes spans from literature, language, writing, music, and dance, across mythology and nature, religion and its rituals, across gender identity or clothing, to the operating system of art. Recent solo exhibitions include: "The Given Day. Castor & Polydeuces" (The Städel Museum, Frankfurt, 2022-2023); “Drei biographische Versuche” (3-chapter series) (Galerie du Monde, 2021-2022); “Schwierige Bilder” (Sammlung Wemhöner, Berlin, 2021); “Stripping the Force – The Self and the Other” (Spotlight by Art Basel, Galerie du Monde, 2020); “Anton in a Bast Skirt” (Galerie Thomas Schulte, Berlin, 2020); “An Exhibition as a Copy” ( Galerie du Monde, 2018); “Stripping the Force” (Kunsthalle Bremen, 2018); “SKITS. 13 Exhibitions in 9 Rooms” (Staatliche Kunsthalle Baden-Baden, 2016); “Who’s Speaking?” (KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin, 2015). Müller’s works belong to many prominent museum collections including the Kunstmuseum Bonn, Germany; Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles, United States; among others.