Pathless Paths
Painting, Drawing and Photography
The Alfred Ehrhardt Stiftung has until now concentrated on the mediums of photography and film.
With the exhibition of Herta Müller’s work the spectrum of media is being opened up to include
painting for the first time, thereby expanding the dialogue with Alfred Ehrhardt’s work.
( influenced by Bauhaus Dessau painter, art teacher, Photographer and filmmaker ).
Painter Herta Müller lives and works in Berlin and near Loro Ciuffenna in the tuscan mountains.
Her house is surrounded by nature, whose elements she studies extensively.
Fascinated by the hues of the mediterranean light, she pays attention to the watery reflections
of the Ciuffenna, a mountain river.
For her observations, she makes use of countless Photographic " notes „ taken on location over the
years. These do not location over the years.
These do not represent artistic works but are employed by the artist like tools, as memory aids.
Photography translates three-dimensional natural details into two- dimensional lines,
surfaces, and empty spaces, offering more direct pictorial solutions than a drawing made by hand,
which always conveys a degree of interpretation.
Herta Müller’s works hint at their origins in the vocabulary of natural forms, but their abstract lines, surfaces, and
empty spaces function more like messages of signs and symbols.
There is an implicit correspondence to what has been seen and experienced, without explicitly adhering to the representational.
Her works are
„ an expression of a transcendent gaze that understands how to elevate
spiritually what surrounds us, revealing the entire wealth of the world in a single line.“ ( Eugen Blume )
Significantly, the artist does not work from nature.
In the studio, both in Italy and in Berlin, she draws from her actual experiences in nature, returning
to that paradise from which the spirit expelled us.
The artist’s many years of visual experiences, in addition to the hearing, smelling, and feeling of a nature
experienced with all the senses bubble up from her paintings.
Her depictions of nature give one the sensations of hearing the gentle gurgling of the water and feeling
its cooling effect.
For Herta Müller, the motivation behind her aesthetic exploration of nature is encapsulated in
John Berger's analysis: „ All the languages of art have been developed as an attempt to transform
the instantaneous into the permanent.
Art supposes the beauty in not an exception - is not in despite of - but is the basis for an order.“
Herta Müller’s longstanding collaboration with Galerie Georg Nothelfer, Berlin and
her guest professorship at the UDK have brought her the attention of art audiences.
Übersetzung von Erik Smith