Artist Talk - Wolfgang Müller & Max Dax

Wolfgang Müller, who became known as the founder of the Berlin band Die Tödliche Doris (1980-1988), is an artist, musician, writer, Iceland and elf expert. His books on West Berlin subculture (Geniale Dilletanten, Merve, 1982, and Subkultur Westberlin 1979-1989.Freizeit, philo fine Art, 2012) are considered as reference works, and his highly regarded treatise and an exhibition at Hamburger Bahnhof Berlin on Valeska Gert (Ästhetik der Präsenzen, Martin Schmitz Verlag, 2010) led to a rediscovery and new reception of the pioneering dancer and performance artist.

Wolfgang Müller likes to address the question of presence and absence: what happens when the artist with his works eludes the usual presence and visibility in the art world? What is the nationality of the circumpolar Odin chicken that breeds in Iceland and winters in Saudi Arabia?

An early key work was the dissolution of his band Die Tödliche Doris into 500 bottles of white wine from Veneto in 1987 - the last official album of his art project was not a record but the band's dissolution into a wine.

Wolfgang Müller: "Doris' characteristic was that she had no body. She got materialized through the imaginations of others."

After Wolfgang Müller's project was represented at the documenta 8 in 1987, he turned down lucrative gallery offers and deliberately evaded a classical career in the art world. Instead, he waited tables in the Berlin pub Kumpelnest 3000 and did research for newspapers.

In Esch-sur-Alzette, Wolfgang Müller consistently continues his lifelong preoccupation with invisibility, absence and representation with his new project Galerie Requisite. Wolfgang Müller: "The works of art that an artist produces in the course of his life are basically props." A representative brass sign bears the engraved inscription: Galerie Requisite, closed Mon-Sun.

The curator and publicist Max Dax, who works and lives in Berlin, in conversation with Wolfgang Müller.