Dave Muller, Installation view, Blum & Poe, New York, 2018

Dave Muller

Dave Muller

Sunset, Sunrise (repeat) b/w The Record Pavilion

July 9 – August 13, 2022
Los Angeles

Dave Muller

Sex & Death & Rock & Roll

April 28 – June 30, 2018
New York

5,471 miles

July 21 – August 15, 2020
Los Angeles

Dave Muller

Sublime Memory Garden

September 19 – November 15, 2014
Tokyo

Dave Muller

YEAH, YEAH, YEAH, YEAH

September 28 – October 27, 2012
Los Angeles

Dave Muller

Blum & Poe and The Calder Quartet

August 1 – September 3, 2011
Los Angeles

Endless Bummer / Surf Elsewhere

Organized by Drew Heitzler
July 3 – August 28, 2010
Los Angeles

Dave Muller

iamthewalrus

February 21 – April 4, 2009
Los Angeles

Dave Muller

Piles & Globes, Likes & Loves

December 2, 2006 – January 13, 2007
Los Angeles

Dave Muller

I Like Your Music

September 11 – December 4, 2004
Los Angeles

Inaugural Group Show

September 4 – October 4, 2003
Los Angeles

Dave Muller

Sprawling

November 16 – December 21, 2002
Santa Monica

October 5 – November 10, 2001
Santa Monica

Dave Muller

Trains, Planes and Automobiles

April 28 – May 26, 2001
Santa Monica

CAN (Remix)

July 15 – August 19, 2000
Santa Monica

Sam Durant, Dave Muller, Matthew Antezzo

June 5 – July 3, 1999
Santa Monica

Dave Muller

May 16 – June 13, 1998
Santa Monica

Broadcasts

Broadcasts: Mutter, Matter, Mother

Organized by Naz Cuguoglu

April 2021

Broadcasts: Three Day Weekend Presents "The Gallery is Closed"

April 2020

Biography

Dave Muller (b. 1964, San Francisco, CA) creates paintings and installations that are rooted in his deep fascination with music, how it infiltrates and shapes our identities and the communal dialogue it generates across cultures. Tapping into shared poetic moments and a collective dialogue, Muller depicts the myriad iconographies of his musical obsessions—album covers and spines, vinyl records, tapes, CDs, bootlegs, B-sides, disco balls, record labels, set lists, rare and popular instruments—sounds of all stripes, musicians, and singers, both beloved and unknown.

Muller appropriates album art in a painterly style that is both whimsical and factual. The paintings are autobiographical and expressive; adoring as well as historically referential. He is careful to include details such as hype stickers, anachronistic price tags, and extinct record shop labels, always attending to age, use, wear, and tear. These paintings tell idiosyncratic stories of politics, subculture, and atmosphere that have morphed through eras and cultures.

Muller’s engagement with a widespread sonic landscape offers fertile ground for portraiture, fandom, revised history, and cultural critique. As both deejay and painter, the artist plays a curatorial role of selection and remix based on playful intersections of imagery, sensibility, and language. Muller often incorporates his paintings into large-scale environments with wall paintings, multi-part installations, and sound.

Dave Muller lives and works in Los Angeles, CA. His work has been the subject of numerous exhibitions in the United States and abroad, including solo shows at the Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston, MA; Minneapolis Institute of Art, Minneapolis, MN; Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Castilla y León, León, Spain; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, CA; and Saint Louis Art Museum, St. Louis, MI. His work is represented in the public collections of the Dallas Museum of Art, Dallas, TX; Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, CA; Henry Art Gallery, Seattle, WA; Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, NY; Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, CA; Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY; National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, Ontario; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, CA; and the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY, among others.

Selected Works

News

Artillery: Gallery Rounds: Dave Muller

07/27/2022

Los Angeles Magazine: Time Collapses in Dave Muller’s New Record Store Pop-up

07/23/2022

Record Pavilion Day

07/30/2022

Art of Choice: Galleries Might Be Closed but Blum & Poe’s Current Group Exhibition Is Anything but Inaccessible

06/12/2020

Pool Magazine: With Doors Wide Open

12/01/2018

Artforum: Dave Muller at Blum & Poe, New York

06/06/2018

Related Publications

Dave Muller: I Like Your Music I Love Your Music

New Images of Man

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