Opening, May 22, 2014, 7 pm
Exhibition, May 23 – July 5, 2014
Ulrike Müller’s work complicates the usual definition of the role of ‹artist› in a number of ways. First of all, she very frequently operates in the context of a group. Secondly, in her work as a painter and a draftswoman, she destabilizes the concepts of originality, autonomy and authorship which are so highly prized in these media. Müller shifts her formal vocabulary between the material and affective states and makes use of a variety of materials and techniques. Alongside small-format images in baked enamel, she also produces expansive murals, publications, graphic prints and performances. In her most recent group of works, Müller focuses on the global textile trade: working specifically with rugs woven in Oaxaca, Mexico. The textile industry has always been a spearhead of capitalist consumer production, with slavery-like organized production methods. Müller is interested in these complexly interwoven connections as well as in the cultural transactions surrounding textile objects, whose transport into Western salons still orientalizes the other to this day.
Ulrike Müller (b. Austria, 1971) lives and works in New York.
www.um.encore.at
Curated by Christian Kravagna and Hedwig Saxenhuber.