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Matt Mullican: Five Walls

Past exhibition
28 April - 19 June 2021
  • Overview
  • Works
  • Installation Views
  • Press
Overview
Matt Mullican Untitled (Five Worlds mapped on a sphere B), 2019 © the artist
Matt Mullican Untitled (Five Worlds mapped on a sphere B), 2019 © the artist

Capitain Petzel is pleased to present Matt Mullican’s second exhibition at the gallery, Five Walls, in which the artist continues his investigation of how signifying processes function and the ways in which objects become charged with meaning. This decades-long exploration across various media such as painting, film, sculpture, photography as well as performance art, has led him to establish his own subjective 5-part classification system, which he calls the “Five Worlds”. In this cosmology, each color corresponds to different levels of perception: green stands for material, blue for the everyday world, yellow for ideas, white and black for language and red for the subjective. For this exhibition, Mullican has deliberately chosen to emphasize the individual objects rather than the system, taking this as an opportunity to showcase works which span fifty years of his practice, with the earliest piece dating back to 1970 and the most recent to merely a couple of days before the opening of the exhibition. The show recapitulates the artist’s multimedia-based artistic approach, featuring a wide variety of materials and subjects, ranging from rubbings to tapestries, from ceramics to flags, virtual reality installations, watercolors and much more.

 

Download Exhbition Dossier Here

 

In this past year, the artist has continually devoted himself thoroughly to making art and producing exhibitions despite the circumstances and has through this developed new modes of production to further expand his cosmology. Included in the show are four new sets of watercolors on wood, a medium the artist has only recently begun making use of. Entitled Things Change in Heaven, the works make reference to his hypnosis performances of the same name, alluding to a key element of his earlier practice. Both the performances and the watercolors deal with the ever-present existential tropes: such as life after death, and heaven and hell. These forms re-appear on textiles elsewhere in the exhibitions, as well as in his painted icons, characteristic of the ongoing underlying interconnections in his practice.

 

The newest work in Five Walls is a pair of large-scale rubbings named All I See Are Light Patterns. Here, the artist continues his long use of his unique “frottage” technique, in which the canvas is placed on a cardboard plate, which is then rubbed with an oil stick to transfer an image. The 2021 painting depicts the forms of the artist’s usually recognizable world dissolving, and in grayscale, introducing a dystopian element into his world cosmology.

 

Mullican was one of the first artists to make use of computer animation and 3D printing in his works, as early as the 1980s, and continues his explorations with VR and digital animation in this exhibition to further expand the ways of representing his worlds. The VR work Overall Chart wrapped on a Sphere from the Inside Out from 2020 transposes the viewer into a sphere which signifies his world and all its elements, creating a new perspective from which to experience it. Another new work, 3D Overall Chart, similarly allows the viewer to subjectively experience a 3D printed object from within, providing multiple vantage points of the structure.

 

Each work in the dense maze of Mullican’s Five Walls is autonomous and free-standing, within his ever- connected cosmology, revealing insights into the nature of reality and the perceived truths of the universal order, while providing valuable alternative models for explaining the world and our existence.

 

Matt Mullican is considered a member of the “Pictures Generation”, having studied at CalArts in Los Angeles. He rose to fame in the early 1980s alongside his contemporaries Cindy Sherman, David Salle and Robert Longo, to name a few. The artist has been the subject of many institutional exhibitions and retrospectives, namely at the MAC’s – Musée des Arts Contemporains, Grand-Hornu, Belgium (2020); Thomas Schütte Stiftung, Neuss/Holzheim, Germany (2019); de Young Museum, San Francisco (2019); Pirelli HangarBicocca, Milan (2018); Kunstmuseum Winterthur (2016); Camden Arts Centre, London (2016); Museo Tamayo, Mexico City (2013); Haus der Kunst, Munich (2011); Museum Ludwig, Cologne (2005); Neue Nationalgalerie, Berlin (1997) and many more. His work is found in numerous international public and private collections, notably the MoMA, New York, Tate Modern, London, Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, Haus der Kunst, Munich, and the Centre Pompidou, Paris.

 

This exhibition is kindly supported by

  • Download Exhibition Dossier here
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Works
  • Matt Mullican Untitled (Five Worlds mapped on a sphere B), 2019 Gouache and oil stick rubbing on canvas Signed and dated verso Four parts Each: 100 x 100 cm / 39.4 x 39.4 inches Total dimensions: 200 x 200 cm / 78.7 x 78.7 inches
    Matt Mullican
    Untitled (Five Worlds mapped on a sphere B), 2019
    Gouache and oil stick rubbing on canvas
    Signed and dated verso
    Four parts
    Each: 100 x 100 cm / 39.4 x 39.4 inches
    Total dimensions: 200 x 200 cm / 78.7 x 78.7 inches
  • Matt Mullican Untitled (2x4 World), 2014 Gouache and oil stick rubbing on canvas Signed and dated verso Two parts Each: 200 x 200 cm / 78.7 x 78.7 inches
    Matt Mullican
    Untitled (2x4 World), 2014
    Gouache and oil stick rubbing on canvas
    Signed and dated verso
    Two parts
    Each: 200 x 200 cm / 78.7 x 78.7 inches
  • Matt Mullican Untitled (Things Change in Heaven), 2021 Watercolor on wood Signed and dated verso Two parts Each: 50 x 40 cm / 19.6 x 15.8 inches
    Matt Mullican
    Untitled (Things Change in Heaven), 2021
    Watercolor on wood
    Signed and dated verso
    Two parts
    Each: 50 x 40 cm / 19.6 x 15.8 inches
  • Matt Mullican Untitled (Mullican poster: Sign), 1979/80 Gouache on cardboard Signed and dated verso Paper dimensions: 112 x 77.5 cm / 44.1 x 30.5 inches Framed dimensions: 117.7 x 82.7 cm / 46.3 x 32.6 inches
    Matt Mullican
    Untitled (Mullican poster: Sign), 1979/80
    Gouache on cardboard
    Signed and dated verso
    Paper dimensions: 112 x 77.5 cm / 44.1 x 30.5 inches
    Framed dimensions: 117.7 x 82.7 cm / 46.3 x 32.6 inches
  • Matt Mullican Untitled (Overall Chart Sign Centered), 2021 Acrylic and gouache on cotton 240 x 263 cm 94.51 x 103.5 inches
    Matt Mullican
    Untitled (Overall Chart Sign Centered), 2021
    Acrylic and gouache on cotton
    240 x 263 cm
    94.51 x 103.5 inches
  • Matt Mullican Untitled (All I See Are Light Patterns), 2021 Gouache and oil stick rubbing on canvas Signed & dated verso Two parts Each: 200 x 200 cm / 78.7 x 78.7 inches
    Matt Mullican
    Untitled (All I See Are Light Patterns), 2021
    Gouache and oil stick rubbing on canvas
    Signed & dated verso
    Two parts
    Each: 200 x 200 cm / 78.7 x 78.7 inches
  • Matt Mullican Untitled (Things change in Heaven from Subject to Language), 2021 Gouache and acrylic on cotton 263 x 150 cm / 103.5 x 59 inches
    Matt Mullican
    Untitled (Things change in Heaven from Subject to Language), 2021
    Gouache and acrylic on cotton
    263 x 150 cm / 103.5 x 59 inches
  • Matt Mullican Untitled (Indian Banner; Elements in Red Square), 1982 Cotton 252 x 252 cm 99.2 x 99.2 inches
    Matt Mullican
    Untitled (Indian Banner; Elements in Red Square), 1982
    Cotton
    252 x 252 cm
    99.2 x 99.2 inches
  • Matt Mullican Untitled (Behind that Person), 2011 Gouache and oil stick rubbing on canvas Signed and dated verso 191 x 124.2 cm 75.3 x 48.9 inches
    Matt Mullican
    Untitled (Behind that Person), 2011
    Gouache and oil stick rubbing on canvas
    Signed and dated verso
    191 x 124.2 cm
    75.3 x 48.9 inches
  • Matt Mullican Untitled (Demon & Angel), 2014 Gouache and oil stick rubbing on canvas Signed and dated verso Two parts Each: 200 x 200 cm / 78.7 x 78.7 inches
    Matt Mullican
    Untitled (Demon & Angel), 2014
    Gouache and oil stick rubbing on canvas
    Signed and dated verso
    Two parts
    Each: 200 x 200 cm / 78.7 x 78.7 inches
  • Matt Mullican Untitled, 1970 Airbrush on paper Paper dimensions: 64.9 x 77.6 cm / 25.6 x 30.6 inches Framed dimensions: 69.5 x 82 cm / 27.4 x 32.8 inches
    Matt Mullican
    Untitled, 1970
    Airbrush on paper
    Paper dimensions: 64.9 x 77.6 cm / 25.6 x 30.6 inches
    Framed dimensions: 69.5 x 82 cm / 27.4 x 32.8 inches
  • Matt Mullican Untitled (Sign Study), 1981 Pencil on paper Signed and dated verso Paper dimensions: 57.5 x 72.5 cm / 22.6 x 28.5 inches Framed dimensions: 60.9 x 76 cm / 24 x 30 inches
    Matt Mullican
    Untitled (Sign Study), 1981
    Pencil on paper
    Signed and dated verso
    Paper dimensions: 57.5 x 72.5 cm / 22.6 x 28.5 inches
    Framed dimensions: 60.9 x 76 cm / 24 x 30 inches
  • Matt Mullican Untitled (Poster Design: Early Language), 1978 Collage on paper Signed and dated verso Four parts Framed dimensions: 102.5 x 91.5 cm / 40.4 x 36 inches
    Matt Mullican
    Untitled (Poster Design: Early Language), 1978
    Collage on paper
    Signed and dated verso
    Four parts
    Framed dimensions: 102.5 x 91.5 cm / 40.4 x 36 inches
  • Matt Mullican Untitled (City Charts and detail Cosmology Sign), 2005 Gouache and oil stick rubbing on canvas Signed and dated verso 76.2 x 60.8 cm 30 x 24 inches
    Matt Mullican
    Untitled (City Charts and detail Cosmology Sign), 2005
    Gouache and oil stick rubbing on canvas
    Signed and dated verso
    76.2 x 60.8 cm
    30 x 24 inches
  • Matt Mullican Untitled (Early Cosmology Chart), 1980 Felt pen on paper, doubled on canvas Signed and dated 154.3 x 106.5 cm 60.8 x 41.9 inches
    Matt Mullican
    Untitled (Early Cosmology Chart), 1980
    Felt pen on paper, doubled on canvas
    Signed and dated
    154.3 x 106.5 cm
    60.8 x 41.9 inches
Close
Installation Views
  • Installation view: Matt Mullican, Five Walls, Capitain Petzel, Berlin, 2021 Ph: Jens Ziehe
    Installation view: Matt Mullican, Five Walls, Capitain Petzel, Berlin, 2021
    Ph: Jens Ziehe
  • Installation view: Matt Mullican, Five Walls, Capitain Petzel, Berlin, 2021 Ph: Jens Ziehe
    Installation view: Matt Mullican, Five Walls, Capitain Petzel, Berlin, 2021
    Ph: Jens Ziehe
  • Installation view: Matt Mullican, Five Walls, Capitain Petzel, Berlin, 2021 Ph: Jens Ziehe
    Installation view: Matt Mullican, Five Walls, Capitain Petzel, Berlin, 2021
    Ph: Jens Ziehe
  • Installation view: Matt Mullican, Five Walls, Capitain Petzel, Berlin, 2021 Ph: Jens Ziehe
    Installation view: Matt Mullican, Five Walls, Capitain Petzel, Berlin, 2021
    Ph: Jens Ziehe
  • Installation view: Matt Mullican, Five Walls, Capitain Petzel, Berlin, 2021 Ph: Jens Ziehe
    Installation view: Matt Mullican, Five Walls, Capitain Petzel, Berlin, 2021
    Ph: Jens Ziehe
  • Installation view: Matt Mullican, Five Walls, Capitain Petzel, Berlin, 2021 Ph: Jens Ziehe
    Installation view: Matt Mullican, Five Walls, Capitain Petzel, Berlin, 2021
    Ph: Jens Ziehe
  • Installation view: Matt Mullican, Five Walls, Capitain Petzel, Berlin, 2021 Ph: Jens Ziehe
    Installation view: Matt Mullican, Five Walls, Capitain Petzel, Berlin, 2021
    Ph: Jens Ziehe
  • Installation view: Matt Mullican, Five Walls, Capitain Petzel, Berlin, 2021 Ph: Jens Ziehe
    Installation view: Matt Mullican, Five Walls, Capitain Petzel, Berlin, 2021
    Ph: Jens Ziehe
Close
Press
  • Matt Mullican, Untitled (Overall Chart Sign Centered), 2021 Acrylic and gouache on cotton, 240 x 263 cm, 94.51 x 103.5 in

    Berliner Zeitung: "Shootingstar ist der Negativtest: Matt Mullican"

    Ingeborg Ruthe, May 1, 2021
    This link opens in a new tab.
  • Installation view: Matt Mullican, Five Walls, Capitain Petzel, Berlin, 2021, Ph: Jens Ziehe

    Monopol: "12 Ausstellungen, die Sie beim Gallery Weekend sehen sollten: Matt Mullican"

    monopol, April 30, 2021
    This link opens in a new tab.

Related artist

  • Matt Mullican

    Matt Mullican

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