From the early 1970s, Matt Mullican has been working on an artistic investigation of the basic structures and constituent dynamics of the world. His cosmology is based on the reality of conceptual and mental structures. It has model character. In his work he concentrates on existential experiences, on questions on the conceptual significance of the object beyond physical perceptibility. This corresponds with the concise presence of only a few, intense colors as well as the simplicity of the pictograms or the infinite variety of his materials. A center-piece of this exhibition at the Johann Widauer Gallery are the pictures that reflect his cosmology: He assigns specific functions to the colors and their sequence: The basis of his diagram is green (ELEMENTS), an equivalent of materiality as such, the primordial state of substance. The objects have no content or significance. Blue (WORLD) refers to aspects of everyday life, the immediate experience of the environment. Therefore we find pictograms such as a house or food. These two levels are part of what Mullican calls the “unframed world”, the following level, yellow (FRAME), stands for consciousness as well as art (the corresponding pictograms being architecture, a camera and the world). Black and white (SIGN) reflects the linguistic level, the world of signs and symbols. In this context we perceive the transformation of the world of perception into conceptual and mental reality. This leads us to the intensity of the last level, red (SUBJECT), where it is all about our relationship towards the symbol based on different individual experiences.

The question of pictorial reality is also important in Mullican’s performances under hypnosis. Beyond all physical reality he searches for an intense transformation of a purely pictorial world into mental reality. The picture itself, as it can be seen in the exhibition in the spatial construction Learning from that person’s work in abstract black and white, has become the mediator of unconscious mental state, of individual experiences within the realm of realty beyond immediate perception. The neutralization of the purely physical in favor of a mental, interior world reflects the relevance of the picture. It is at the same time an object within the world of immediate perception, but on the other hand this world is broken up under autohypnosis and complex layers of the unconscious become visible. In his work Matt Mullican reflects the universal complexity of existence. In his inexhaustible imagination he poetizes the interferences between the immediate physical world of objects and the cosmos of the non-visible. In his boards he creates subtle intensities of the individual, whereas the rubbings reflect the physical intensity of mental processes. The impenetrable beauty and mystery of pure materiality become visible in the full glass sphere. The perfect form, which also corresponds to the mystery of cosmos, meets the almost scary lucidity and ideality of the material. Structures of the individual, of the subject and his consciousness, elementary pictogrammatic signs, as well the conciseness and structural relevance of symbols and colors characterize the cosmos of Matt Mullican.

Gaby Gappmayr, 2009