Cookie-Cutter

6 January – 3 February 2008
Orchard, New York

In the window:
- Christian Philipp Müller, “Infill,” 2008, three panels, plywood, paint, each 6'7" x 1'5/10" x 1 1/4", overall dimension 6'7" x 5'8" x 1 1/4"

Gallery:
- Christian Philipp Müller, “Interpellations 2-5,” 1994, chipboard, painted, plexiglass, bookracks, manipulated books, 46" x 48" x 18"
- Christian Philipp Müller, “Floating Arch (for Colin),” 2008, six horizontal and two vertical fluorescent lights with 60w warm tubes, overall dimension 48" x 8" x 4 1/4"
- Jeff Preiss und Christian Philipp Müller, “Around the Corner,” 2008, DVD, 120 min.

The exhibition “Cookie-Cutter,” by Christian Philipp Müller took place in two parts, the first of which opened on January 6, 2008. The second opened on January 23, and featured artist book collaborations and other books published by designer Luc Derycke with MER. Paper Kunsthalle.

The first part of “Cookie-Cutter” presented three works by Müller: “Infill” (2008), “Floating Arch” (for Colin) (2008) and “Interpellations” (1994). “Interpellations” is an archive of altered travel guides, listings and maps that describes New York’s downtown art neighborhood SoHo circa 1994 and explores the fashioning of descriptions of a single gallery, which may or may not have been included in the original materials. Müller first presented this work at American Fine Arts, Co. in that same year, and exhibited four of its six book vitrines fourteen years later at Orchard. “Infill” and “Floating Arch” were new sculptural works, each of which responded to the perception, physicality, and place of Orchard while extending the analogy to American Fine Arts, Co. presented by “Interpellations.” These works are accompanied by a new film by Jeff Preiss that takes as its foundation the Lower East Side walking tour Müller performed during November and December of 2006 (from Müller’s, Zoe Leonard’s and Petra Wunderlich’s “Around the Corner”). Preiss’s film was presented with one of Wunderlich’s black and white photographs of local synagogues seen at Orchard in “Around the Corner.”  To articulate the ideas animating Müller's exhibition and its relationships to the history of American Fine Arts Co., Orchard hosted a round table entitled “On the Legacy of Colin De Land,” moderated by art historian James Meyer on January 11.

The second part of the exhibition began on January 23 when a temporary bookstore presented books from MER. Paper Kunsthalle.The bookstore featured a program of nightly events, starting on January 23 with a conversation between Matt Mullican and Luc Derycke about their book collaborations. On January 24, a reading and launch were held for the latest MER. book by Adam Lehner, The Rearrangement. On January 25, AudioMER. and Brethren of the Free Spirit hosted the official release of their new album “All Things are from Him, through Him and in Him,” with two performances by Jozef van Wissem and James Blackshaw, and performances by Jozef van Wissem and James Blackshaw were held on January 31.