Johannes Müller-Franconia

Johannes Müller-Franken (born January 1, 1960 in Freiburg im Breisgau ) is a German painter.

"Kajal 2004"

Life

Johannes Müller-Franken, first son of Egon Müller-Franken, German actor, and his wife Helga and brother of Sebastian Müller-Franken , completed an internship as a stage painter at the municipal theaters in Mainz after graduating in 1978 and studied at the Johannes Gutenberg University there: until 1982 art education with a focus on film with Kurt Weber, former cameraman for Andrzej Wajda , then, focused on painting, with Bernd Schwering and Klaus-Jürgen Fischer, finally, from 1990, fine arts. 1994–1997: Lecturer in drawing at the same institute.

Participation in exhibitions from 1984; first individual presentation in 1998 in the Städtische Galerie im Park Viersen (Emslandmuseum in Schloss Clemenswerth , Kunstverein Eisenturm Mainz); first solo exhibition in the USA at OK Harris Works of Art, New York (2001, 2009); Regular participation in the Chicago Art Fair, 2015 Art Basel Miami Beach with Bernaducci.Meisel Gallery, New York.

Müller-Franken lives in Munich.

Artistic development

Johannes Müller-Franken (like Heiner Altmeppen , Dieter Asmus , Fritz Koch and others) is one of the painters whose work is decisively influenced by a key experience in early childhood and who have also described this event: as a specific, extremely dense, emotionally charged situation in which a special mode of perception is permanently established. What is meant is the ability to fix visual phenomena before they are named by the brain and fed into the pragmatic order, in short what is commonly referred to as artistic vision . In the course of this incident, an individual pictorial basic pattern is also imprinted, which later reappears again and again - in many modified forms. (A. Schreiber, "Da, Runkelrüben!" - painters paint, and also realistically -, MERKUR, German magazine for European thinking, No. 12/2003)

His archetype is a tall, blonde girl, whom he noticed in the early autumn of 1963, looking down from the window, on the opposite side of the street: hair, to name a few details, shoulder length, the face a little red, anorak in delicate green-gray, almost blurred with the The late summer colors of the surroundings, but at the same time emphasized by the complementary contrast to the difficult red tones of a slightly swinging skirt: “In this complexity it is my first memorable experience with a (female) figure and today [...] I take it and in her Structurally related situations are just as true as they were back then with three and three quarters of the year. ”(Quote from" Visionen desreal ", exhibition catalog, 2001).

These situations did not appear in paintings until 1985. Before that, Müller-Franken tries to get to these moments with the camera, but has to realize that they cannot be captured with photographic and filmic means, and in view of the acrylic and oil paintings that were painted later, it becomes clear why: The design of the specific surfaces , especially the skin and textiles, rely on the painter's hand-eye apparatus.

Artistic intention

"Piazza Mazzini, 2003"

After having spent two years dealing with ironed tablecloths, porcelain bowls, tropical fruits, etc. via still lifes, his central motif emerges from 1985: "Anna", who is in the limelight for a portrait; a woman “in front of the mirror”, checking the fit of her ball gown, or the girl who is highly concentrated working on her companion with the eye liner (“Kajal”, 2004).

It's about beauty and you encounter it twice: Thematically - the pictures speak about the fabrication of beauty (i.e. reflect in the subject what he does as a painter) - and as a result of this action, i.e. i.e., his artistic formal effort. The three-dimensional design of the figures in connection with the already mentioned representation of the clothing, whose haptic charm (and erotic effect) is reinforced by the formal contrast to polished tile walls or technical equipment, gives its protagonists an extraordinary presence and thus fulfills their function, the viewer - in the words of Konrad Fiedler - to inform about the clear quality of the world.

Even if women (and a few male actors) play the main roles, it's not just about them. At the latest “In front of the mirror” it becomes clear that the affection triggered by the characters jumps over to the things around them. That Müller-Franken brings out the aesthetic dimension of these trivial objects in the bathroom, i.e. in the studio where beauty is "produced" every day, with the purposeful use of design and alienation means, like painters in their workshop use, underlines in an ironic and profound way the closeness to life and vitality of his artistic approach.

Apology of Beauty

"In front of the mirror, 1990"

In the picture “In front of the mirror”, the special appearance of things is still tied to special circumstances that promote this intention. In later works such as “Piazza Mazzini” they express their aesthetic potential primarily through the alienating effect of suggestive lighting. So the “Piazza Mazzini” becomes the area of that other reality through an almost magical illumination, which is formed from the white of the street lamps, the reflection of the dull pink twilight sky and yellow artificial light that comes from the right, presumably from an illuminated advertisement, the square brightens.

While Rimbaud's momentous remark from 1873 ("One evening I took beauty on my lap. - And I found it bitter. And I reviled it."), The art production of the 21st century is still significantly influencing. B. in the sentence Barnett Newman - "The impulse of modern art is the desire to destroy beauty" - is expressed, Müller-Franken relied on the "mother tongue of beauty" (Dave Hickey) and made it a constituent element his work. (Quotes: catalog for the exhibition "About Beauty", Berlin 2005). The fact of their re-presence as a modern vehicle for the deprofanization of things signals that a long neglected task of art is being re-realized and Müller-Franken is significantly involved in this project. His aim is to transform the sensual experience of visible reality into pictorial expression, i.e. That is, to renew a worldview that - as the philosopher Hermann Schmitz (philosopher) put it back in the 1970s - is threatened with disappearing due to progressive rationalization and digitization. (J. Soentgen, " The hidden reality. Introduction to the new phenomenology by Hermann Schmitz ", 1998).

Exhibitions (selection)

Double the pug? - Realism today (1991, Viersen)
1st Realism Triennale (Martin Gropius-Bau, Berlin, 1993)
Sharp look - The German Association of Artists in Bonn (Art and Exhibition Hall of the Federal Republic of Germany, Bonn, 1995)
Large art exhibition (House of Art Munich, 1997)
Johannes Müller-Franken (OK Harris Works of Art, New York, 2001)
Visions of Reality ( Städtische Galerie im Park Viersen , 2001)
Chicago Art Fair (with OK Harris Works of Art, New York, 2002)
Johannes Müller-Franken (OK Harris Works of Art , New York, 2009)
Realism - The Adventure of Reality (Kunsthalle Emden, 2010)
Realism - The Adventure of Reality (Kunsthalle der Hypo-Kulturstiftung, Munich, 2010)
Feest der herkenning - Internationaal realisme (Kunsthal Rotterdam, 2011)
Art Basel Miami Beach with Bernaducci (Meisel Gallery, New York, 2015)

Prizes and awards

1987: 1st prize at the Art Prize of the City of Alpirsbach: "After intense painting, a new sensibility"
1989 Sport Toto GmbH sponsorship award
1994 Scholarship from Delfina Entrecanales Studio Trust, London in Manilva (Spain)

Working in public collections

Hessian State Archives
State of Rhineland-Palatinate
Emslandmuseum Schloss Clemenswerth
Collection of the city of Viersen

Web links

personal data
SURNAME	Müller-Franken, Johannes
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	German painter
DATE OF BIRTH	January 1, 1960
PLACE OF BIRTH	Freiburg in Breisgau