Matt Mullican
Matt Mullican (1951, USA) is at pains to lend the world order and structure and thereby derive meaning from it. To do this, Mullican relies on the encyclopedic method to chart what he finds. In pursuit of this lifelong project, he has developed a system of pictograms as his personal model of a cosmology, the basis of which is a cartographic structure consisting of a color and sign system.
Accordingly, Mullican’s second solo exhibition with Galerie Micheline Szwajcer consists of several large-scale paintings and smaller iron and blown-glass sculptures. In his opinion, the object’s reflective forms mirror the cosmology itself, as well as details from the cosmology.
Inspired by historical systems for ordering the world, Mullican’s new series of oil-stick rubbings references the work of the Encyclopédistes, a group of Enlightenment intellectuals who compiled the ambitious Encyclopédie edited by Denis Diderot in the 18th Century. Their endeavor was founded on the belief that all knowledge could be apprehended in script and illustrations alike.
The exhibited rubbings, some of which nearly cover the wall from floor to ceiling, are either text-based or figurative. While the lyrical script canvases are directly derived from the plates of the encyclopedia, the colourful polyptychs represent Mullican’s self-proclaimed interest in ‘the possibility of somehow encoding it all’.
March 22 – May 5, 2012
Untitled (Roundhouse), 2012
609,6 x 335,3 cm (total)
121,9 x 335,3 cm (each)
5 oil-stick rubbings on canvas
unique
Untitled (Evolution of Man), 2012
Untitled (Diderot, Alphabets des Lettres Rondes, Diptych), 2012
243,8 x 335,3 cm (total)
121,9 x 335,3 cm (each)
2 oil-stick rubbings on canvas
unique
Untitled (Diderot, Symbols, Diptych), 2012
243,8 x 335,3 cm (total)
121,9 x 335,3 cm (each)
two oil-stick rubbings on canvas
unique
Untitled (Diderot, Hauteur, Largeur et Lente des Écritures, Diptych), 2012
243,8 x 335,3 cm (total)
121,9 x 335,3 cm (each)
oil-stick rubbing on canvas
unique
Untitled (Models of the cosmology), 2012
2 tables with 5 pairs of blown-glass sculptures
Untitled (Models of the cosmology), 2012
2 tables with 5 pairs of blown-glass sculptures
detail
Untitled (Models of the cosmology), 2012
2 tables with 5 pairs of blown-glass sculptures
detail
Untitled (Anatomy), 1991
(2x) 11 x ø 24cm, 30 x 56 x 30 cm, 30 x 74 x 40 cm, 15 x 33 x 42 cm, 12 x 45 x 24 cm
grey cast iron, 6 parts
3 ed.
Untitled (Diderot, Exercices Préparatoires), 2012
121,9 x 182,9 cm
oil-stick rubbing on canvas (unique)
Untitled (Diderot, Différentes Écritures de Bâtardes), 2012
121,9 x 182,9 cm
oil-stick rubbing on canvas (unique)
Untitled (Diderot, Taille de la Plume à Traiter), 2012
121,9 x 182,9 cm
oil-stick rubbing on canvas (unique)
Untitled (Diderot, Différentes Écritures de Rondes), 2012
121,9 x 182,9 cm
oil-stick rubbing on canvas (unique)
Typology of Gestures, 2012
Compilation of numerous short clips documenting and ordering Matt Mullican’s hypnosis
performances according to the particular gestures and actions carried out.
edited by Janneke Janssen