Muller Van Severen: Frames

Muller Van Severen​: Frames
October 10–November 23, 2024

Tim Van Laere Gallery presents Frames, Muller Van Severen’s first solo exhibition at the gallery. Over the past 15 years, Muller Van Severen has developed a synergistic body of work that continually explores the boundaries between sculpture and functional object. This exhibition is the first time they present a series of works that are all unique.

The exhibition Frames can be seen as a total installation, an all-encompassing universe of form, color, light, reflection and transparency. More than 30 works are brought together in the monumental space of Tim Van Laere Gallery, in which the artist duo searches for the most essential sculptural impact through minimal intervention.

For Frames, Muller Van Severen always starts from a single plate, from which openings and depths arise through cutting and folding that not only provide space for functions, but also bridge the gap between reality and imagination. From the flat surface of a plate, a sculpture emerges that moves between abstraction and figuration. With Frames, Muller Van Severen creates a fictional world of images, in which alternative intrinsic meanings and possibilities are expressed, balancing between realism and surrealism.

For this, the duo draws inspiration from various architectural forms. Even though functionality is still a defining factor in each individual object, what stands out first is the celebration of the possibilities of pure geometric forms in this total installation. In doing so, Muller Van Severen reminds us of the bold visual vocabulary of geometric forms in different colors introduced by the Suprematists. The works Frame 17 and Frame 20 can even be seen as a clear reference to Malevich’s installation for The Last Futurist Exhibition of Paintings 0.10 in 1915. 

Muller Van Severen, however, goes further and not only wants to demonstrate a pared-down use of form and color, the duo also wants these forms to become an essential part of our daily lives and invites everyone to use and inhabit their sculptures. In doing so, they build on the principles introduced into the art world by Franz West, who emphasized the participatory value of a work of art in his oeuvre. It was also Franz West who caused a radical revolution that declared furniture as art. Whereas for Franz West, furniture pieces were “adaptives for the body at rest,” Muller Van Severen looks for ways that furniture can shape our lives and what their impact is on both the space and the user. How do these objects enhance the dialogue between us, each other and the space? This approach to furniture as an art object can be compared to Gordon Matta-Clark’s approach to architecture and art. Like Matta-Clark, Muller Van Severen places themselves on the periphery in order to appropriate the freedom to break the existing conventions of both art and design.

About Muller Van Severen
Fien Muller and Hannes Van Severen initiated their artistic collaboration as Muller Van Severen in the spring of 2011. Their quest focuses on the creation of objects with a distinct sculptural quality, explicitly involving the surrounding space and its dynamics in the creation process. The result of this dialogue between form, space and possibilities of use manifests itself in several collections that propose a reinterpretation of the interaction with the environment.

Having won numerous awards and exhibitions in museums and galleries worldwide (Musée des Arts Décoratifs Paris, Galerie Kreo, Massimo De Carlo, Andreas Murkudis, Tim Van Laere Gallery), Muller Van Severen is considered one of the most iconic European design studios today. Their work is part of several public collections such as Vitra Design Museum (Germany), Centre Pompidou (France), Le Grand-Hornu (Belgium), Musée des Arts Décoratifs (France), Design Museum Gent (Belgium) and CNAP, Centre National des Arts Plastiques (France).

Tim Van Laere Gallery Antwerp–Rome