In the final exhibition of 2019, Ido Vunderink (1955) presents a new series of geometric paintings that further explore the boundaries of his steadily growing oeuvre. On Ido’s recommendation we invited Pjotr Müller (1947) to install a number of his architectural sculptures in the gallery space. A duo-exhibition of two artists who tend to be impervious to contemporary tendencies. Both express themselves clearly and concretely in the language which suits them most. Müller presents mysterious constructions in a pure, tangible form, and Vunderink offers us straightforwardly painted iterations that almost reveal the mystery of painting.

Intersections, overlaps, intervals and rhythmically moving colors spread across multiple canvasses are the visual tools deployed by Vunderink in his new paintings. The behavior of colors, planes and lines is both transparent and wonderfully strange in this fundamental exploration that is set within the limits of the given dimensions. You could call it pure and concrete, but it is the magic of painting that makes everything mobile and tangible, freeing it from associations with design or styling. This is concrete painting that rocks in all its starkness.

Pjotr Müller has been one of the stalwarts of Dutch sculpture for decades. He is less well-known among the general public, but in the museum world his exceptional oeuvre is held in high regard. For Müller, sculpture is an investigation into spatial experience in the form of architectural structures in which he attaches as much importance to the visible outer world as he does to the invisible inner world. Structures as a demarcation of space that are plainly reminiscent of archeological finds as well as of utopian ideals. His sculptures are the result of a journey through time and across cultures that ends in inspired structures which do not in any way refer to functionality but rather move in the direction of a metaphysical idea and the hidden power which is inherent to the forms and materials that have been used. The legitimacy of Müller’s sculptures does not derive from theoretical references. They are sculptures that effortlessly establish a link between matter and mind and give the viewer the opportunity to come up with their own interpretation. The result is just as clear and just as elusive as Vunderink’s concrete painting.

Nederlandse Uitnodiging (pdf)