Richard Müller

“Richard Müller (1874-1954) was born in the Bohemian city of Tschirnitz (today Cernovice nad Ohra, Czech Republic) as the son of a weaver. His artistic talent was evident early on. In 1888, at the age of only 14, he was animated by a porcelain painter to enter the famous School of the Royal Saxon Porcelain Manufactory in Meissen, where he was immediately accepted. In 1890, Müller went on his own and without any financial support to Dresden. Here he was, although he had not yet reached the required age of entry, accepted at the Art Academy as one of the youngest students ever. In 1895 he met the graphic artist and sculptor Max Klinger, who inspired him to begin with etching.

In 1900, now in Dresden as well known as Klinger, Müller was appointed professor at the Academy His students included George Grosz and Otto Dix. In 1933, shortly after Hitler had seized power, he became president of the Dresden Academy and, in such capacity, confirmed the dismissal of his former student Otto Dix from his professorship. But also Müller lost his professorship two years later because of “subversive tendencies in his art”.

Nevertheless, Müller remained in high esteem as a painter under the Nazi régime. He exhibited several times at the Great German Art Exhibition in Munich’s Haus der Deutschen Kunst, in 1939 with a pencil drawing of Hitler’s birthplace. In the final phase of the Second World War, he was included in the Gottbegnadeten Liste of the most important artists, saving him from any war effort, even on the home front. Müller died in 1954 at the age of 80 in Dresden.”

from http://www.juxtapoz.com/erotica/the-intricate-erotica-of-richard-mueller-1874-1954

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Mise en scène: Joel-Peter Witkin

“Russian novelist Leo Tolstoy amazed the world with one of the finest definitions of art in What Is Art? (1897). He argues, “A real work of art destroys, in the consciousness of the receiver, the separation between himself and the artist.” The core quality of art, Tolstoy calls “infectiousness” – which increases with the level of the artist’s “sincerity.” Tolstoy concludes that when we are “infected by the feelings which the author has felt, it is art.”

In Joel-Peter’s photographs, the “infectiousness” comes from deep empathy for his physically deformed models – the hermaphrodites, teratoids, transsexuals, bearded women, dwarfs, giants, people with horns, wings, tails, enormous genitals, people without legs, arms, genitals, breasts, eyes, ears, lips or nose. He draws on the history of great paintings of people with so-called “abnormalities” – from Bosch, Goya and 17th century English and Spanish portraits of royals surrounded with dwarfs – to subvert socially accepted conventions of physical normalcy.”

from http://www.huffingtonpost.com/lita-barrie/the-art-of-empathy-joelpe_1_b_5559157.html

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Face of a Woman, 2004

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Mise en scène is a French term that refers to the way a stage or environment (i.e. in film) is arranged. Besides the fact that I’m still very taken by the French language, there’s no better term to describe these images by Joel-Peter Witkin that Astrid recommended I look at for inspiration.

They’re delightfully bizarre and also very human in the way that Witkin depicts his physically deformed models in some of his photographs – I especially like the model posed to resemble a Greek/Roman marble, because that subverts the conventional way of seeing deformity with the idea that despite their missing limbs and heads we often regard marble sculptures as the pinnacle of human beauty as depicted in art, therefore why not confer the same status of beauty on a deformed body? This reminds me also of Marc Quinn’s work – he explores many ideas about the body in his sculptures but his aesthetic isn’t quite as relevant to me at this point.

Most people would find these images uncanny in their mood and appearance – this is crucial to me in my visual explorations, that I surround myself with such visuals to immerse my practice and process in this aesthetic.