Contemporary sculpture and photography meet in exhibition by Sally Gall and Peter Simon Mühlhäu�er

It is on the unusual combination of contemporary photography and sculpture that the bi-personal exhibition Sally Gall and Peter Simon Mühlhäußer focuses. Harmony of Contrasts, on display from July 21 to August 26, 2019 at the Accesso Galleria in Pietrasanta.

In her first exhibition in Europe, American artist Sally Gall (Washington, D.C., 1956) is exhibiting eight large-format, full-color photographs from the Aerial project, while German sculptor Peter Simon Mühlhäußer (Göppingen, 1982), who has been represented by the Pietrasanta gallery since 2011, is showing four works from the Digital Notion series in medium- and large-scale quartzite crystal sand.

The harmony of contrasts, which can be read in the Italian translation of the title, is articulated in a complementary dialogue: if Sally Gall photographs in breezy, lively shots the hanging laundry, exhorting the audience to look outside themselves and focusing their gaze on the sinuosity of the airy lines of the cloths, Peter Simon Mühlhäußer’s work is introspective: his sculptures, dark in color and attitude, appear motionless and folded in on themselves.

It is also the aesthetic balance between the organic and the inorganic that binds the two artists’ research: Sally Gall photographs inorganic objects that, through the lens of her interpretation, suggest the likeness of organic beings; Peter Simon Mühlhäußer models the organic matter of his sculptures, which represent human figures, reifying them in geometric volumes and structures.

Sally Gall’s camera lens points upward: providing the backdrop for the photographs is a clear, sunny sky, punctuated by the bright, often primary colors of the objects in the foreground. The inspiration for the Aerial series came about during a trip to Italy: everyday objects are transformed into organic images of sea creatures, birds and flowers. “I look for poetry in the everyday and the miraculous in the ordinary,” the photographer declares to explain the purpose of her poetics.

Sally Gall’s works are held in numerous public and private collections, including The Whitney Museum of American Art, The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, The Museum of Fine Art in Houston, USA, and the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris.

In the series entitled Digital Notion, Peter Simon Mühlhäußer for the first time creates his works by moving exclusively within the digital world. Each work is conceived and modeled on a digital platform via a touch-screen. The sculptures present organic forms through realistic modeling: the curves of bodies slide into each other, forms collide to create new figures. Finally, the geometric elements that harness them symbolically reproduce the complexity of interpersonal connections and show human frailties along with the need, at times, to erect defenses.

The exhibition is complemented by the publication of a catalog that includes images of the works on display and updated bio-bibliographical apparatus.

The exhibition opens July 20 through Aug. 26 in Pietrasanta, Lucca, at the gallery’s headquarters at Via del Marzocco 68-70.

Pictured: Sally Gall, Blooms (2014), fine pigment print, 76x112 cm.

Source: press release

Contemporary sculpture and photography meet in exhibition by Sally Gall and Peter Simon Mühlhäußer

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