Marcos Mena Cruz on October 17, 2024
Peggy's Pushing Boundaries auction features captivating pieces from the portfolio of Apollonia Müller, offering collectors a rare opportunity to acquire works by this internationally acclaimed photographer. Born in Heidelberg, Germany in 1963, Müller's work offers a unique perspective on Los Angeles, a city she describes as both fascinating and disconnected. Her photography journey began with assignments that took her around the world, but it was in Los Angeles that she found her artistic voice and a subject that continues to inspire her. Müller's work has gained significant recognition, with photographs featured in prestigious institutions such as the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York. Notable exhibitions at MoMA include "American Surfaces and the Photobook" (2018) and "Into the Sunset: Photography's Image of the American West" (2009), and her works are also part of permanent collections at major museums including the Whitney Museum of American Art, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA), and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA).
Müller's early work, primarily captured using large format analog cameras, presents Los Angeles as a vast, dreamlike landscape. Her images are characterized by a rare, misty light that bathes the city in an ethereal glow, transforming familiar urban scenes into otherworldly vistas. These photographs, often taken from elevated vantage points, evoke a sense of detachment and isolation, reflecting Müller's experience as an outsider in a sprawling metropolis. This unique vision is exemplified in two of her photographs, both of which are featured in the "Pushing Boundaries" auction.
The first image “Griffith Observatory” captures a solitary figure standing at a viewpoint overlooking Los Angeles from Griffith Park. A lone woman, dressed in light clothing, stands at the edge of a concrete platform, her back to the camera as she gazes out over the urban expanse. The foreground is sharply detailed, showcasing the viewing platform with its protective fence, a green telescope, and a trash can, while the city beyond fades into a hazy, dreamlike state.
Building on this theme of unexpected juxtapositions, another striking photograph in the auction “Jurupa” features a large, weathered elephant statue perched on a hillside overlooking a foggy valley. The elephant, appearing almost ghostly in the mist, stands as a surreal sentinel above the barely visible cityscape below. Its worn, textured surface contrasts with the soft, grassy foreground and the ethereal background. Both photographs showcase Müller's masterful use of atmospheric conditions and elevated viewpoints to create images that are at once familiar and otherworldly.
Müller's approach to photography is deeply rooted in the concept of the sublime, transforming the often chaotic and unappealing aspects of Los Angeles into images of breathtaking beauty and otherworldly stillness. Her work invites viewers to reconsider their perceptions of urban environments, finding moments of transcendence in unexpected places. Through her lens, Los Angeles becomes a model for conceptualizing photography across land, populations, and technologies.
The search for perfect light is a defining characteristic of Müller's process. She often spends months revisiting locations, waiting for ideal conditions that typically occur for only a brief window between 7:00 and 7:30 in the morning. This dedication to capturing fleeting moments of ethereal light imbues her images with a sense of rarity and preciousness. Frequently, she employs filters that cause the distinctive Southern California light to blanch the scene, making the ordinary appear strange and unsettling.
A notable aspect of Müller's cityscapes is the absence or minimization of people. When figures do appear, they are often small and distant, emphasizing the vastness of the urban landscape. This approach creates a sense of solitude and contemplation, allowing viewers to focus on the interplay of light, architecture, and natural elements. However, her work is not devoid of social commentary. Images of lone individuals in vast, industrial landscapes speak to themes of isolation, displacement, and the precarious nature of urban living.
Müller's quest for the perfect vantage point has led her to explore various buildings and unconventional locations throughout Los Angeles. She has gone to great lengths to access rooftops, parking structures, and even stopped on freeways to capture her unique perspectives of the city. This dedication to finding the ideal viewpoint contributes to the distinctive and often surprising compositions in her work.
In her series "Angels in Fall," Müller explores a Los Angeles far removed from the glitz of Hollywood and Beverly Hills. Her images reveal a city of contradictions, where the dreams of immigrants and the realities of urban life intersect. Her gaze as a detached observer draws parallels to surveillance imagery, mapping heat, movement, and distance in a way that blurs the lines between human and non-human elements of the cityscape.
Müller's photography asserts the power of the visual, teasing out ambiguous narratives that transcend localities and encompass larger truths. By slowing down the viewer's gaze, her nonmoving pictures create a visual space for reflection on the complexities of urban existence and the human condition in an ever-changing world.
The "Pushing Boundaries" auction presents a rare opportunity for collectors and enthusiasts to own pieces from Müller's unique vision of Los Angeles. This event not only celebrates Müller's contribution to contemporary photography but also allows her work to reach new audiences, continuing to push the boundaries of how we perceive and interact with urban landscapes.
While Müller has exhibited at MoMA, it's important to note that this auction is independent of MoMA and not a partnership with the museum.
