Shaking Things up Still Remains An Artists Duty

The first lunchtalk of the new term held by Christian Philipp Müller was well-visitited. After initial technical problems the artists easily sucked the audience into his work, showing lots of film fragments from his various performances, be it crossing the austrian border unnoticed, a project he  did for the austrian pavilion of a Biennale di Venezia where he himself was the acting party, or a project like Burning Love/Der Lodenfüssler where he had 20 members of an auxiliary fire brigade in the area of Ramsau walk the marathon distance of 42,8 km, all covered in - and bound by - a single piece of Loden cloth.

As he talks about his work, it becomes apparent how involved he is in it. The fine line the artist threads, his surroundings, his materials, what he expresses - all this plays a huge part in Christian Philipp Müllers work. He also likes to connect what he does to the location he does it at, like the aforementioned Burning Love project that features Loden, a cloth made from woven wool in a felting-like process, that has been produced in the region for over 500 years. In this spirit, he already took his students out to discover the city and look for inspiring spots. "We're gonna do performance in the city. I was told to stay out of the way of the Festspiele, who seem to completely overtake this city in the summer ... so maybe we're gonna do something about this." he says with a  mischievous glance in his eyes.

In any case, I believe we can look forward to an interesting time with him in Salzburg, and an even more interesting final presentation by his class. [mp]