Dave Muller returns to Los Angeles for his fifth solo exhibition at Blum and Poe from 2 December. The artist's previous show at the gallery, 2004's 'I Like Your Music', showcased Muller's longstanding obsession with rock music and records, featuring almost fifty acrylic paintings of friends' vinyl collections as well as a version of a wall painting that Muller presented at that year's Whitney Biennial, showing a flow chart of influential rock acts from the years 1954 - 1975.
Dave Muller, What Would Sun Ra Do?, 2004, acrylic on paper
Muller is a musician and DJ himself, and a member of the seminal group, Destroy All Monsters, and so his 'rock paintings' resist being read simply as indictments of commodity culture, but rather, at least in part, as self-conscious reflections on his own (and others') pious, and somewhat elitist, investment in rock music. That much is made clear by a 2004 work on paper, What Would Sun Ra Do?, that seems to elevate the jazz legend to god-like status. The paintings of his friends' collections betray a DJ's fascination with the musical continuities, clashes and eclecticisms around which such collections are conceived, built and ordered, and also pose interesting questions of music's longevity vis-a-vis other forms of cultural product. Viewed sideways-on, so as to reveal the LP titles, the precisely-rendered paintings reveal all the creases and other signs of ageing that take their toll on record sleeves, no matter how devoted the collector.
Dave Muller, 'Piles and Globes, Likes and Loves'
2 December 2006 - 13 January 2007
2754 S. La Cienega Boulevard
Los Angeles, California 90034
Tel: +1 310 836 2062
www.blumandpoe.com
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