MARLIE MUL
3D
Following my invitation as a member of the artistic commitee of Mécènes du Sud - Montpellier-Sète-Bézier, Marlie Mul presents the exhibition 3D, bringing together for the first time several series of works sharing silicone as their base material. Since 2020, the artist has been exploring and experimenting with silicone in her studio and in several exhibitions. The different series on view in Montpellier demonstrate Mul’s interest in the material’s many variations. While they were previously exhibited independently, the exhibition 3D offers the opportunity to appreciate the four distinct bodies of work together for the first time and experience the different stages in the work’s development.
Looking through the window from the street, passersby witness a micro-fiction, like observing lit interiors at night. The sculptures seem to wander around the room, looking at other works, discussing amongst themselves, giving their opinions, and offering criticism, as if they too were visitors to the exhibition. This series includes hybrid sculptures that are a cross between oversized spermatozoa and bald men’s heads, whose remaining hair has been hand-implanted by the artist. These initial works with anthropomorphic attributes greet visitors at the entrance to the exhibition. Spreading through the rooms to the upper floor, the following series of works continue this spirit of exchange, the pieces blending into one another due to their formal and material relationships, chromatic similarities, or the strange correspondences they evoke. One finds black-and-white photogravures depicting the spermatozoa sculptures in the progress of being made in the studio in Unnamed (Scalp): photographic portraits in two dimensions. While the bodies of the works are made with conventional molds, works from the series Unnamed Charm are composed of sheets of thin silicone which are folded, squashed, and pierced, sometimes covered with fake hair or embellished with small plastic bones or charms. Objects with symbolism and function unknown to our world, they seem to originate from another universe, where the presence of hair and bones might have a specific meaning and use. Their folds are impaled using a stainless-steel rod, taking on a new dimension in the Large Charm and Pouch series, in which the silicone sheets unfold into a kind of soft bas-relief. Between painting and wall sculpture, these compositions consist of two or more superimposed layers of silicone, assembled, folded, and finally restrained.
The word “3D” evokes transformation, change of state, rather than the rigidity or supposed permanence of sculpture. It is also a simple, even laconic, overused term that often gets lost in its technological associations: 3D imaging, 3D printing... yet for Mul, 3D brings us back to the solidification of matter, the physical presence of bodies, and the creation of forms from fluids. In the exhibition 3D, the silicone never quite solidifies: it slips through, changes shape and appearance, folds and unfolds, and escapes from the wall, only to return to it in three dimensions.
–– Benoît Lamy de La Chapelle
This exhibition was curated by Benoît Lamy de La Chapelle upon invitation of Mécènes du Sud.
Thank you to Benoît Lamy de La Chapelle, Marine Lang, Clémence Ségonds, Nuria Mokhtar and Sofia Leiby.
All photos by Useful Art Services
Graphic design for the exhibition by Sabo Day
All works courtesy of Marlie Mul and Croy Nielsen, Vienna