Christopher Muller: easy tools

One of the most unusual protagonists of the photography scene in the Rhineland

Christopher Muller, who has held a professorship for artistic photography at the Folkwang University since 2009, has been one of the most unusual protagonists of the photography scene in the Rhineland since the mid/late 1990s. With art prizes from the Kunstfonds Bonn in 1995 and the Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach Foundation in 2004, for example, the artist, who grew up in London and trained at Camberwell College of Arts & Craft, the Slade School of Fine Art in London and finally at the Kunstakademie in Düsseldorf, has found his place in the scene. He has always been characterised by his special approach, which sets him apart from his colleagues. He comes from a still life background and caused quite a stir in the 1990s with his serialised object photographs. His most recent photographic collages and watercolours, which are increasingly taking up more space, focus on the relationship between things and our view of them. The pictures make it clear that the viewers are involved in a complex web of feelings, likes and dislikes, which are also determined by their expectations and actions in everyday life.