Ernstes Spiel – Catalogue Raisonné

Michael Müller
Der geschenkte Tag: Kastor & Polydeukes

Volume 1.4 of the catalogue raisonné of Michael Müller’s artistic œuvre also functions as an exhibition catalogue. It is dedicated to the monumental painting Der geschenkte Tag [The Given Day], measuring approx. 6 × 65 m, which Michael Müller created for his solo exhibition at the Städel Museum in Frankfurt, 2022/23. The 24-part painting as well as the exhibition as a whole elaborate on the Greek myth of the twins Castor and Polydeuces (Castor and Pollux), the Dioscuri. In addition to the history of the works’ creation and an extensive interview with the artist, essays, and a lyrical composition by American literary scholar and translator Stanley Lombardo update the story of the Dioscuri for the 21st century.

Edited by Alien Athena Foundation for Art, Ph. Demandt, S. Grosser, H. von Amelunxen, A.-M. Bonnet and L. Töpfer
With contributions by Hubertus von Amelunxen, Philipp Demandt, Svenja Grosser, Gero Heschl, Michael Krüger, Stanley Lombardo, Cora von Pape, Lukas Töpfer and Rudolf Zwirner
Deutscher Kunstverlag / De Gruyter, Berlin 2023
420 pages, 138 color illustrations
German, English and Chinese
ISBN: 978-3-422-99725-7

Michael Müller
Am Abgrund der Bilder – „Birkenau“

Volume 4.1 of the catalogue raisonné presents a group of works that comment on four paintings by Gerhard Richter entitled “Birkenau” and attempt to come to terms with a cruel historical fact in the infamous extermination camp of the same name, Auschwitz II/Birkenau. As direct as Müller’s critical comments on Richter’s paintings may be, they are accompanied by many less conspicuous, quieter, even wounded works which were on view at the Museum im Kulturspeicher Würzburg in the winter of 2022/23 and at St. Matthew’s Church in Berlin’s Kulturforum in 2023.

The thematic focus of both exhibitions was the so-called “Sonderkommando,” a group of forced laborers and segregated Jewish prisoners who had to assist the murder of their fellow human beings under the constant threat of death and supervision by the SS from 1942 to 1944/45. The book documents Michael Müller’s artistic confrontation with this demanding historical fact and contextualizes it in a long essay by the art historian Lukas Töpfer. A text contribution by Anne-Marie Bonnet deals with the differences in the two solo exhibitions in which the group of works was presented and addresses the site-specific characteristics of the presentations.

Edited by Alien Athena Foundation for Art, H. von Amelunxen, A.-M. Bonnet, G. Heschl and L. Töpfer
With contributions by Lukas Töpfer, Anne-Marie Bonnet and Gero Heschl
Deutscher Kunstverlag / De Gruyter, Berlin 2024
320 pages, 108 color illustrations
German, English and Chinese
978-3-422-80180-6

Michael Müller
Lektüre und Ablenkung

Volume 4.2 of the catalogue raisonné Ernstes Spiel [Serious Game] is devoted exclusively to the large-format, 126-part work Lektüre und Ablenkung [Reading and Distraction], which belongs to the group of works called indexes. The basis for the index presented in this book is Jacques Derrida’s book Vom Geist [Of Spirit] in the German translation by Alexander García Düttmann, who also contributed an essay to the book. But much more than the content of the book, Michael Müller is interested in the inevitable distractions that come to the fore during the intensive reading of a book. Meticulously documented, continued and elaborated in a wide variety of media—from text notes to drawings, photographs and collages to mathematical notations—the distractions integrated into the work unfold a multi-layered network of references, categorisations and relations that reveal structures of the ever wandering mind.

Edited by Alien Athena Foundation for Art, H. von Amelunxen and A.-M. Bonnet
With contributions by Alexander García Düttmann, Gero Heschl and Daniel Tyradellis
Deutscher Kunstverlag / De Gruyter, Berlin 2023
211 pages, 131 color illustrations
German, English and Chinese
ISBN: 978-3-422-80187-5