& Müller Sohn Venice Biennale 2019Palazzo Mora

Müller & Sohn | art projects

The artist duo Müller & Sohn think of them-selves as an aesthetic, experimental research laboratory that operates between the poles of painting, sculpture, photography and video art. Their work focuses on nature, from closely observing and examining it and its phenomena to scrutinising how human intervention can impact and alter it.

Müller & Sohn develop artistic-scientific tools which they use to create object-based landmarks. In this way, they may for instance install oversized red strips of fabric as measuring instruments in a landscape, documenting the changes of their visual structure in photographs and on video. By letting landscape blend into their artistic framework, Müller & Sohn create images of intense aesthetic coherence.

Irene Müller, previously an artistic collabo-rator with Christoph Schlingensief, interweaves

documentary photographic and video material with painting. Diethard Sohn connects with nature by means of its hyper-realistic recon-struction in painting, contrary to his ironic reinterpretation of cubism which combines cubistic structures with comic strip aesthetic.

The duo’s experiment, which started off in the Austrian Alps a couple of years ago, has since been widely expanded and transformed. In their new project “WEGE – Wattenmeer” (“PATHS – Wadden Sea”), their individual approaches converge in a variety of ways. Whereas in the Alps the artists made use of red strips of fabric exclusively, these strips of fabric are now complemented with additional elements such as “network” and “lugworm poo”, and all this on a tiny island in the North Sea. The “network” consists of a grid of red fabric which they raise

above their heads while hiking on the island’s beach. Wind gets caught in solid matter and the object forms in relation to the wind’s force and direction. A camera records and displays the succession of temporary fabric sculptures photo-graphically and videographically. Big inflatable knot-like objects (“Lugworm Poo”) are intended by the artists to manifest the vastness of the sandy beach. Underwater recordings show the influence that currents exert on water. Air bubbles come into being, arise and vanish while new ones keep on rising. Not least of all, the duo takes great interest into neobiota – foreign species that have been migrating from the Pacific Ocean into the North Sea and are now spreading gradually in an environment that originally was alien to them. They eventually became the source of inspiration for the sculptures which take the shapes of mutated fictitious marine creatures.

All these approaches of discovering nature, re-interpreting and re-designating it and viewing it from different perspectives, are condensed by the artistic processes of Müller & Sohn. The “paths” are a timeline and a cross-section of their endeavours. Operating at the intersection of art and science, crossing static with animated art forms, and confronting transient performative happenings with solid objects, the artists create an experience of totality deeply rooted in the present moment.

Installation “Network“ A red fabric net. The videos show the net in action.

Sculptures Seven sculptures in different sizes. Material: artificial stone Size: 30 - 90 cm in length

Video Installation Three different videos of actions in natural space. Wind/earth/water – each one on a separate screen (loop).

Painting „Fish Vision“ Acrylic on canvas 250 x 120 cm

Palazzo MoraFirst Floor, Room 4

Palazzo MoraFirst Floor, Room 4 Complete view

Painting „Fish Vision“ Detail

Painting„Fish Vision“Acrylic on canvas,250 x 120 cm,2019

Painting „Fish Vision“ Details

Sculptures“Lugworm Poo”, “Lucky Hermit” and “Robot Crab”.

Video Installation Filmstills Actions in natural space (Amrum and Sylt).

Video Installation Filmstills Actions in natural space (Amrum and Sylt).

Sculpture Details

“Lugworm Poo” “Drift Bottle”

LUGWORM POOLugworm Poo is an omnipresent element of the Wadden Sea. To the uninformed eye, it may just seem to be an excretion by an animal that feeds on sand, digests it and produces more or less random structures, resembling complex knots. Yet, in fact, these structures are really a language: poo is the way lugworms communicate with each other. Each type of lugworm poo has its own grammatical structure, its own meaning and expression. So while walking along the beach you might find appeals, questions and answers, offenses, declarations of love, heated discussions or jokes. Scientists have even found the first chapter of a lugworm poo novel, dispersed over five square miles of Wadden Sea. They really liked it and are now eagerly searching for the second chapter.

BUBBLE EGGSBubbles that are created by underwater currents often take on an oval shape like eggs (the word “oval” actually contains the Latin word for “egg” – “ovum”). As it seems, round and elliptical forms are at the very core of nature’s power to create new life.Our Bubble Eggs drift towards the surface and offer a protected sphere that encloses neobiotic life forms. These Bubble Eggs are fragile lifeboats that carry those new migrating species towards new environments where they can hatch and thrive.

LUCKY HERMITOne day, Maneki-Neko decided to leave the humans in order to bring a happy future to the inhabitants of the ocean. There, it quickly adapted to the new environment and, being well respected by the marine natives, was able to spread under the name of “Lucky Hermit” as an auspicious neobi-ont, overcoming borders.From time to time, Lucky Hermit surprises unsuspecting fishermen, when it is lifted from the sea as bycatch. In this way, even today, in the shape of a “hermit- mermaid- maneki-neko-fossil”, it still makes many human beings happy too.

GLOBAL PLAYERThe Global Player is a five-armed „pentapus“ holding a golf ball in one of its tentacles. He is at home on the best golf courses of his (underwater) world. In an octopus’s garden he almost can’t be beaten. If he loses a game, he will get really dangerous. The Global Player excels in global networking. The Global Player’s arms reach everywhere. When travelling (which he constantly does), the Global Player does not need the President’s Suite. He carries an egg shell around with him which serves him as mobile private accommodation. The Pentapus once might well have been a military experiment, commissioned by the Pentagon and gone out of control. Any further detail is classified.

TASK FORCE LAGUNAOn the Wadden Sea, strange specimens of flying sea turtles wearing Venetian carnival masks have been spotted recently. Rumor has it that they are migrating turtles from tropical waters who got stuck in the Venetian Lagoon during carnival season and, feeling enthusiastic about the event, spontaneously mutated. They then used their fins as wings, flew across the Alps and eventually reached the Wadden Sea. Secretly called the “Unità Operativa Laguna” or “Task Force Laguna” they export the spirit of Venetia to the north. Could this be the start of the Sea Turtle Renaissance?

FISH VISION 3DAs an ambassador of today’s marine world, Fish Vision 3D is very successful. A genuine fata morgana on tourist beaches, this species mostly prevails in the shape of a six-eyed skeletonized fish. But don’t let outer appearances trick your eye! Fish Vision 3D Dystopic Appearance sends misleading signals to other creatures. This fish is the holographic shape shifter of the oceans. Camouflage and deception are its basic strategies of survival. Some scientists even believe it can be dead and alive at the same time and call it “Schrödinger’s Fish”. It is, by the way, the only marine animal known to appreciate a good joke.

DRIFT BOTTLEThis story began when there still were humans living on earth. 3000 years ago, around the year 2019, scientists threw a PET bottle into the sea in order to do research on currents of plastic garbage. The bottle was equipped with various sensors, a GPS-linked beacon and a state-of-the-art microcomputer and it was worth a fortune. Yet, it got immediately swallowed by a giant squid. Feeling bored inside the squid’s stomach, it started copying the DNA of the squid’s seafood prey and morphed bionically over the passing of centuries. When the squid died, it resurfaced but no one was left to look out for the Drift Bottle. So, now it keeps sending out signals which, unheard by any-one, fizzle out in the depths of the universe.

ROBOT CRABThe Robot Crab is a work of human ingenuity, endowed with artificial intelligence. Once released into the environment, the Robot Crab very quickly made itself independent from its creators and multiplied. The robot crab by now inhabits almost every coast around the world. You might think that the crab you see crawling on the beach is just an ordinary crab. But is it really?Don’t be mistaken. Robot Crab is watching you. The neobiota might soon be overrun by the cyberbiota.

Making OfIn the studio

Müller & Sohn | art projectsIrene Müller & Diethard Sohn

info@muellerundsohn.euwww.muellerundsohn.eu