When, in 2005, the Cooper Union in New York invited Ulrike Müller to speak about the political potential of aesthetic practices, the artist decided to present a new series of small, carefully composed drawings. Lines touch, merge, move apart, twist, meander, and disappear. They follow a strict symmetrical order while at the same time widely diverging from that order. The forms bound from positive to negative and back; they are abstract and suggestive, iconic and narrative; they present an aloof front while at the same time exuding a sexual charge. Observers are addressed as male and female: the apertures, hollows, extroversions and curves, reminiscent of a »central core imagery« ranging from Lee Bontecou to Judy Chicago, form unfamiliar bonds with phallic verticalities. The drawings’ dynamics and expressiveness are informed by many years of dealing with queer politics. Perhaps the sheets are meant to reflect doubt concerning established gestures of artistic protest; mainly, however, they announce Ulrike Müller’s project, which is to re-examine how useful the language of abstraction is if you look beyond its political identity and gender-specific definitions.

 

Translated by Dagmar Breitenbach, Jennifer Taylor

 

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