REINHARD MUCHA – BEFORE THE WALL CAME DOWN / LENNEP
2024-09-16For decades, Mucha’s celebrated multifaceted practice has delved into themes of collective memory, history-making, and structures of power. His insightful examinations of cultural systems, particularly those related to the complex history of his native Germany, call forth critical conversations surrounding institutions and politics of display. Composited by Mucha with a formal rigor that nods to Minimalism, his assemblages of raw materials and found objects – wood, aluminum, flooring, footstools, carpenter rulers – elude explicit reading or meaning. The arrangement is the beginning: abstracted and recontextualized from their original functions, the materials are elevated and transformed in this new condition that releases their latent nostalgic, intellectual, and narrative potential. Mucha’s “history and memory boxes” (Hans-Jürgen Hafneri)* are vessels with networks of references that speak not only to his own biography, but also that of the collective history and culture.
Opposite – Installation view
Exhibition runs through to October 19th, 2024
Luhring Augustine Chelsea
531 West 24th Street
NY 10011
New York
