Matthias Müller :
Phantom
November 17, 2006 – January 14, 2007
Video Gallery

In Phantom, Matthias Müller juxtaposes passages from vintage Hollywood movies, inverting the film footage so that it appears in sepia-toned negative. This eerie effect creates ghost-like figures that wander endlessly through a shadowy labyrinth of domestic interiors. Opening and closing curtains repetitively, the figures are free to peer out of their rooms; but the instant they try to escape their confines, they fade into darkness or dematerialize in blinding white light. All of the sequences that Müller utilizes are outtakes, recovered from the cutting room floor. Literal phantoms of film, the figures are, in Müller’s words, “a living dead confined to a cinematic space they cannot leave. They are the secret that lies between stories.”

Matthias Müller is a filmmaker, video artist and photographer who lives and works in Bielefeld, Germany. He has taken part in major film festivals worldwide, including Cannes, Venice, Berlin and Rotterdam, and international exhibitions including Documenta X and Manifesta 3. In 1994, MOMA, New York, dedicated a cinematic retrospective to his work. His films and videos are part of the collections of institutions such as the Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, and the Museu d'Art Contemporani, Barcelona. Müller's work has been honored with more than 40 awards worldwide.

Matthias Müller, Still from Phantom 2001, color video. Courtesy the artist and Timothy Taylor Gallery, London

This presentation is organized by Miami Art Museum and curated by Assistant Curator René Morales .