ROLAND MURI, "Role Models?" at the Chelsea Art Museum
Lydia Keck
The legendary image
of a great celebrity is usually a mask for a tormented past. Jazz musician Louis
Armstrong grew up in poverty with his grandmother in Louisiana. When, as a twelve-year-old,
he fired a gun into the air on New Year’s Eve, he was arrested and put into reform
school. It was as an inmate of this strict establishment that he learned to play
the trumpet. The greatest blues musician of all time, B.B. King, was born on
a farm near Indianola, Mississippi. His father abandoned the family when the
boy was four years old; his mother died five years later. At the age of twelve
he got a steady job as a farmhand and spent ten years following the plough over
the fields.
Film actress Marilyn Monroe grew up in a foster family, where she was seriously
sexually abused by her guardian. In 1945 she worked as a photographer’s model
and in 1953 had her first international success with the film "How to Marry
a Millionaire". But she always suffered from a lack of recognition as a
film actress. Amid a web of compromising personal entanglements with powerful
men, she died in 1962 of an overdose of drugs.
The Chelsea Art Museum specializes in contemporary and postmodern art. From 4
to 14 September, it will be exhibiting icons of Elvis Presley, Marilyn Monroe,
Louis Armstrong and B.B. King by Swiss pop expressionist Roland Muri. The artist
poses searching questions about modern European art and culture. In the forties
and fifties, these US stars achieved fame in both the United State and in an
emerging, younger Europe. In the seventies, Pop Art transformed the image of
Marilyn Monroe from one kind of icon (American cinema) to another (international
media).
What is really concealed behind the color combinations and histories of Muri’s
pop icons? These symbolically charged paintings by the Swiss artist break new
ground with their layered painting technique, the incorporation of texts, and
reversed lettering. His frequently cryptic message has political and social implications:
narrative elements are reduced to the artistic essentials before taking form
on the canvas.
Nothing is ever lost. With its recollections of the film and art worlds of a
former era, the Chelsea Art Museum’s exhibition turns the everyday reality of
the times into discussion topics for the visitor. In a mirroring and a blending
of cultures from both sides of the Atlantic, "Masterpieces" juxtaposes
pop icons with a Rembrandt self-portrait. It is being exhibited here for the
first time, and is to become part of the museum’s permanent collection.
Muri’s exhibition
is opening with a special event. Jean Miotte, one of the founders of abstract
painting, pop expressionist Roland Muri and multitalented German television chef
Horst Lichter are hoping – in the current state of tension between America and
Europe – to act as ambassadors and make a contribution to detente. Here, the
great French artist Jean Miotte (whose works may be seen on the third storey
of the museum) will be joining Horst Lichter, a traditional German cook who hopes,
by way of a return for American influences on western European culture, to export
something of European cuisine to the States. Swiss artist Roland Muri will be
involved in this joint culinary campaign in the role of "mediator"
– all in all, a symbol of productive coexistence. This European artistic and
culinary campaign will be taking place at the Chelsea Art Museum on 2 September
between 5 and 9 p.m. in the museum’s entrance hall.
