Art Taaalkssss: Claudia & Julia Müller

Claudia & Julia Müller, Ear painting 3, 2018, Acrylic on canvas, 70 x50 cm, photo: the artists

Claudia & Julia Müller (live and work in Basel and Berlin) have been working collectively since 1991. If the early work of the artist duo emphasized aspects of the intimate and personal environment, in recent years, the work of Claudia & Julia Müller has turned its focus towards a response to social phenomena and to human relations in their anthropocentric and cultural contexts. Psychological studies, ways of life, behavior, body language, compulsions, togetherness and social distance are among the topics that form the basis of their empirical research.

Starting with photographs that are often sourced from private and public archives, the sisters create large room paintings / drawings that juxtapose collage with ceramic, wood, plaster and textile. The exchange between the pictorial dimension and three-dimensional elements such as colorful ceramic vessels, lamps, carpets or furniture contributes to create environments that are able to trigger questions around relations and representation.

After 12 years at HEAD in Geneva, Claudia Müller was recently appointed as lecturer at the Art Institute HGK FHNW in Basel. Julia Müller has been professor at the Kunstakademie in Karlsruhe since 2005.

Claudia & Julia Müller have participated in numerous solo and group exhibitions, both in Switzerland and abroad, including Musée des Beaux Arts, La Chaux-de-Fonds (2019); Kunstmuseum Basel (2017); Maccarone Inc., New York (2015); Kunsthaus Zürich (2015); Kunsthalle Nürnberg (2014); Museum Franz Gertsch, Burgdorf; MoMA New York (2009); MOCA Miami (2008); De Appel Foundation, Amsterdam (2007); Reina Sofia, Madrid (2004); and Kunsthalle Basel (1997). Due to open in February 2021 at Centre culturel suisse. Paris, their next exhibition comprises a new body of work that will include printed canvas in combinations with wall paintings.