Frames: A New Exhibition by Muller Van Severen

For over 15-years, Muller Van Severen have been pushing forward ideas around design, form, shape and colour in their visually engaging sculptural objects, furniture and accessories. For this new exhibition, Frames, the creative partners, Fien Muller and Hannes Van Severen, have developed their first collection of unique pieces.

The exhibition is meant to be experiences as a “total installation, an all-encompassing universe of form, colour, light, reflection and transparency. More than 30 works are installed salon-style on the walls, across the floors and even outside, creating a dynamic interaction with the work. Forms appear to take on certain functions yet remain open-ended. “Frame 9” is a large green ‘frame’ installed on the wall with a flat rectangle opened outwards, turning it into a space-saving desk.

Many of the works call to mind the forms of Malevich and Supremacist artworks, as well as the Neo-Concrete movement from South America, such as “Frame 6”, in which a silver cone becomes a vase, breaking up the bold geometric red form. Geometry seems to have come to life off the pages of a math book in a work such as “Frame 12”, or the squiggle-like sculptures installed high up on the wall. The central blue folding structure could be a desk, shelving, partition and seating, or simply a unique architecture-inspired sculpture. “For Frames, Muller Van Severen always start from a single plate, from which openings and depths arise through cutting and folding that not only provide space for functions, but also bridge the gap between reality and imagination. From the flat surface of a plate, a sculpture emerges that moves between abstraction and figuration.”

The designers are also influenced here by Franz West and his declaration that furniture can be art. The lines are between art and design are blurred throughout the exhibition, yet the work does invite you to want to move in and around it, play with it and experience it. “Whereas for Franz West, furniture pieces were “adaptives for the body at rest,” Muller Van Severen looks for ways that furniture can shape our lives and what their impact is on both the space and the user. How do these objects enhance the dialogue between us, each other and the space”?

Frames, a solo show by Muller Van Severen, is on view at Tim Van Laere Gallery in Antwerp through November 23, 2024

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