Kaspar Müller

Kaspar Müller
Rendering of service in the pitch of the bruise

der TANK
23 February – 3 March 2019
Opening reception Friday 22 February, 6 pm

Curated by Roman Kurzmeyer

Opening hours:
Wednesday, 4–8 pm
Saturday, 2–6 pm
Sunday, 2–6 pm
And by appointment: info.kunst.hgk@fhnw.ch

The FHNW Academy of Art and Design views the Campus of the Arts, where der TANK exhibition space is located, as a cultural and creative cluster that is intended to evolve constantly and offer optimal conditions for various stakeholders. The glass-fronted exhibition space is the antithesis of the White Cube. It is a space that is visible from the outside. Kaspar Müller uses der TANK as a glass showcase to advance the cluster. He has brought a post office and a medical center to the campus. It is a bluff. The services are housed in identical, industrially prefabricated, cheap wooden sheds that the artist bought from a hardware store and transformed into brightly illuminated backdrops. His new film Rendering of service in the pitch of the bruise (2019) will be shown in the two tool sheds. We watch Timothy Lee Standring in the lead role playing three characters: a doctor, a sick postal employee, and a cook preparing a dinner for a nuclear family. Müller's film deals with the comprehensive economization of society, the resulting concept of labor, and precarious working conditions. Labor has only been rated favorably since the nineteenth century. It was the French philosopher Jacques Rancière who reminded us that art played a significant role in this revaluation, because it unites “the traditionally opposing concepts of manufacturing activity and visibility in one idea.” Rendering of service in the pitch of the bruise (2019) is an exhibition that stimulates discussion about this positive concept of work, which Thomas Hirschhorn also refers to in his work for example, in a place where many young people desire a life as an artist.

Kaspar Müller, born in 1983, completed his art degree at the Academy of Art and Design Basel in 2006. Shortly after studying in Basel, he founded the artist-run space Vrits with Dagmar Heppner, Karin Hueber, Emil Michael Klein, and Kilian Rüthemann, as well as the Kunstraum Galen with Flora Klein and Emil Michael Klein in 2009. Kaspar Müller lives in Berlin.

The exhibition Kaspar Müller: Rendering of service in the pitch of the bruise is the fourth project in a series begun in 2017 with works by alumni of the Art Institute at the FHNW Academy of Art and Design in Basel.