Christopher Muller: easy tools

Christopher Muller, who has held a chair in fine art photography at Folkwang University since 2009, has been one of the most unusual protagonists of the photography scene in the Rhineland since the mid/late 1990s. Having been awarded art prizes, for instance, by the Kunstfonds Bonn in 1995 and the Alfried Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach Foundation in 2004, the artist, who grew up in London, trained at Camberwell College of Arts & Craft and the Slade School of Fine Art in London, and finally graduated from the Kunstakademie in Dü sseldorf, made his mark on the scene. He has always had a different approach from that of his colleagues. His background is in still life, and it was precisely within this field that he caused a sensation in the 1990s with his serial-like photographs of objects. His recent series of photographic collages, as well as his noticeably expanding use of watercolor techniques, address the relationship between things just as much as our view of them. The images clearly show that the viewers are involved in a complex web of feelings, likes and dislikes, which are in turn also determined by their expectations and actions in everyday life.

Christopher Muller (b. 1966) grew up in London and studied at the Slade School of Fine Art, London, and at the Kunstakademie Dü sseldorf. He was awarded a stipend by Kunstfonds e.V., Bonn (1995), the Stadt Nordhorn (2000) and the Alfried Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach-Stiftung for Contemporary German Photography (2004). From 2007 to 2009 he was Professor of Photography at the Academy of Visual Arts Leipzig, before becoming Professor of Photography at the Folkwang University of the Arts, Essen, where he currently teaches. He lives in Dü sseldorf. Peter Friese (b. 1952) is art historian, curator and former museum director. He studied Art History, Archeology, Pedagogy, Philosophy i.a. at Max Imdahl in Bochum. He was a co-founder and curator of Kunstraum Wuppertal, in 1988 he took over the artistic direction of Kunstverein Ruhr in Essen. From 2007 he was the head curator of Museum Weserburg, where he was director from 2015 to 2018. He curated among others shows with Gary Hill, Christian Boltansky, Lawrence Weiner, Gerhard Richter, Anna and Bernhard Blume, and Tony Cragg.