We are glad to present an exhibition showing a series of new works by John Miller. John Miller has been engaged with gold as a material which suggests greed, power and wealth since 2006. While his pieces in the exhibition �The Gold Standard� in P.S.1 in New York were small-scale, his newer works are opulently fashioned wall reliefs and sculptural table ensembles made out of artifacts from everyday life sheathed in gold paint. The components of the collages or sculptures (within the scope of a spatial installation) mostly consist of toys, which the artist buys in discount supermarkets or toy stores, combined with decorative bric-a-brac. The golden series from 2007/2008 shown in our gallery is also made this way.
The anterior gallery room is dominated by four pompous gold reliefs and a royal blue carpet. Shapes of body parts like hands, legs, foot soles, but also miscellaneous exotic fruit, sea creatures, shells and weapons are arranged on panels accumutively and preserved with a golden coating. Miller presents a kind of memento mori to the viewer, the haptic presence of which rather resembles the remnants of an effusive, aristocratic banquet. John Miller's artefacts and versatile spatial installations are characterized by barbarousness as well as the allegedly sublime and the pursuit of greatness. Along these lines, he has created an interior in the rear gallery space with antifunctional furniture in front of ornamentalized wallpaper. Various side tables are decked with objects such as model houses, armor, also swords, apples and coins. What Miller serves up on these tables recalls the stock of the historical Imperial Regalia of the Holy Roman Empire. However, the objects Miller has chosen are insignia that can be seen as generally representative for dominion and conquest (of a territory).
The artist demonstrates a playful adaptation of reality with his collages and objects, once again dedicated to the subject of fetishism. Similiar to his coated �John-Miller-Brown� assemblages from the 90s, here the artist collects items of scenery which outline a greed for possessions. In place of the brown impasto formerly used, Miller's emblem for feces, now he has chosen a golden sheathing that raises the artificial value of his work as well as of the objects he uses. These are replicates, which stand for the idea of the original, yet must not necessarily be read as iconographic symbols. Not the individual symbol, but the arrangement on the whole signifies an icon, which refers beyond its classical significance and is applicable to the social status quo. The staging of a situation is essential for this:
The conceptually influenced artist plays with illusion and reality in his pieces, works with props and models that substitutionally present material, but ultimately, beneath the surface reveal no more than a facsimile- like the golden paint he uses, which remains only as an idea in the face of its own intrinsic worthlessness. Although language is a central vehicle in John Miller's work � he is not only an artist, but also an author � he chooses the titles for these pieces arbitrarily. Miller juggles with phrases taken from the context of art criticism (Minimalism) as well as the titles of tv series and soap operas. The artist reintegrates these as independent titles for his works, while the respective denotation remains interchangeble due to the ambience of arbitrainess.
The goal of his work is to revise established paradigms and to reveal society's insatiable covetousness via exaggeration. His metaphorical criticism is directed at fun-oriented society's affinity for exuberance. The switch from the color brown to gold not only visualizes the shift from desiring a product to yearning for dissipation, but also marks a development in his artistic work. In the year 1996 our mutual collaboration began with the presentation of several of John Miller's photographs and paintings in the Oberrheinischer Literaturmuseum and in Thomas Riegger's apartment. Our cooperation with John Miller was a decisive influence for the idea and concept of our gallery. Due to this we are especially happy that a continuation of two groups of works from the gold series - shown separately at the beginning of the year at Metro Pictures and Friedrich Petzel Gallery in New York � are now brought together in the show in our gallery. Christina Irrgang
The gallery is closed in August. However, we will be glad to arrange an appointment for you to view the show by telephone.
