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Die Fläche, installation view at PM/AM, London, 2016

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Die Fläche, installation view at PM/AM, London, 2016

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Marius, 2016
glazed and unglazed black tiles, white grout, MDF.
116 × 89 × 4 cm

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I once read that one knows sculpture by what it is not: not architecture, not landscape, and, importantly, not painting. On the map of ‘what it is’, the work of SIMON MULLAN is located at the intersection of painterly abstraction and the object. His last exhibition currently presented at PM/AM in London, radically answered the question thanks to the title Fläche (Surface).

The show features MULLAN‘s ongoing series Alpha (2012–ongoing), a set of monochrome patchworks made of bomber jackets and Popularis (2015–ongoing) that follows the same pieced principle but by using white or black ceramic tiles.

Whether MULLAN is using soft materials or rigid components, the walls of the gallery are flanked with craggy geometric forms whose edges are hard, and junctions clear. His approaches mirror the impulses of American abstractionists by embracing a reduced palette and simple compositions.

With these two bodies of work, SIMON MULLAN offers no view, no space, no time but also no diversion. Additionally these pieces do not function as monochrome because of their clear materiality. The only natural light coming from these immured windows is given by their title which all features first name and thus offers glimpses of existence.