Press release
Yves Muller’s work is interspersed with the concepts of memory and origin. Based in Avignon for a number of years, he finds the subject of his work in the archives of the old Mont de Piété’s accounting books, the loopholes of the fortifications, or the traces of his sleeping body left to abandon.
His very conceptual work comes from a methodical approach. A parallel emerges between sedimentation, stratification and erosion phenomenons at work in both nature and culture. The artist sees the writing of time and the spirit of matter. Yves Muller has worked solitarily up until now. Today he has decided to come out of the forest to expose in full daylight. For his first exhibition, the Dix9 Gallery presents two series that illustrate his most significant fields of investigation
The serie Continuum is made up of photos of book bindings. These are not just any books, these are accounting books found in the former Mont de Piété which is now the archives of Avignon. Books that keep stories and individual memories secret.
Smartly arranged by size and color, the bindings create a surprising depth effect. Continuum is also a reflection on Time where each photo represents 1/125 of a second. The entire series counts 125 photographs and therefore represents one second. The full deployment of Continuum is a metaphor for the forest, a forest where one sees only the trunks and a nod to paper from which books are made.
On a different note, the series clic clac is the outcome of a ritual formed around recording an intimate moment of the artist’s. This system is also very methodical; for a number of years, each morning, Yves Muller recorded through photos the traces his body leaves on the still warm sheets on his clicclac bed. Collected in a box that represents one week or superposed on a wall, these photographs show the same austere simplicity which is at the core.
A spiritual body of work where beauty makes sense.