Kleiner Führer durch die ehemalige Kurfürstliche Gemäldegalerie
5 – 8 February 1986
Rundgang, Kunstakademie Düsseldorf
Elements of the Performance
– Two boards of compressed wood, labeled
– Two rolls of paper, hand-painted
– Two pieces of Plexiglas, labeled
– Two display stands made from scrap wood
– 1000 leaflets (ten pages)
During the annual exhibition of the Düsseldorf Art Academy, Christian Philipp Müller presented the “Ehemalige Kurfürstliche Gemäldegalerie” on the first floor of the building. Every day at 4:00 p.m., he hosted a tour of the painting gallery of 1778 in the hall of the academy of 1986. Banners at the end of the ninety-meter-long space provided information about the exhibited artists while Plexiglas panels mounted on the walls announced in German, English, and French, “Do not touch pictures or frames.” A brochure produced by the artist provided visitors with a list of the exhibited works, printed in the original typography and with the numbering and titles from the 1778 catalogue of the collection. The cover showed Müller in a security guard’s uniform in front of a painting that remains in Düsseldorf.
Like an art student working as a museum guard to earn extra money, Müller wore his uniform. Yet, he led visitors through a collection that had already been moved from Düsseldorf to Denmark in 1806 to prevent it from being plundered by Napoleon’s troops. Müller traversed the length of the hall with his visitors, pausing to discuss the paintings listed in the brochure. In so doing, he combined historical knowledge of the changing reception of the works with insight into the relationship between the works’ creators and their aristocratic collector. He traced a variety of connections, thereby overwriting the current configuration of the tour. For in the midst of the annual exhibition, among works by fellow students and professors, Müller spoke of absent works and relations with the past, quoting critics of the time such as Wilhelm Heinse.
Essay by George Baker available here.